


Get Well Soon

by ModernAntiquity



Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, British Actor RPF
Genre: Depression, Drug Addiction, F/M, Fiction, Love, Original Fiction, Romance, Sex, Sex Addiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernAntiquity/pseuds/ModernAntiquity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone once told me that I spent my life skillfully walking a tightrope between reason and impulse. It sparked something within me that I'd thought over fully. </p><p>Reason and impulse: two very different, very opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum meanings. </p><p>"You've become the ringleader of this chaotic bazaar; a three ring attraction where you are also the main event,"</p><p>I could see myself suspended around millions of people, some of which I knew personally. Spreading my arms wide, my chin up high, eyes focused on the glare bouncing of the the taut wire. I could feel it tense beneath the bones of my feet. The lights hung high atop the tent melted every qualm, every fear, every doubt.</p><p>"And everyone you've ever come in contact with will be sat ringside, speculating. Some of them have come to watch you flawlessly tiptoe to your destiny, most will want to see you fall to your fate,"</p><p>I didn't know then, but as time progressed, I realized where he stood aside from the wire, the spectators, the hot lamps on my back. </p><p>He was my balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strangers on a train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first chapter! Yay! I will be updating this as much as I possibly can! Sorry for the lack of Benedict; although he briefly appeared in this chapter, he will be occurring and evolving more as each chapter follows. Any editing suggestions or suggestions in general are definitely welcome! Thanks in advance for reading this!
> 
> -Kourt

I remember the exact moment of initially realizing I wasn't exactly the same as every other first-grader. In fact, I reminisce quite frequently. In itchy tights and belted shoes, I could feel my eyes scanning the room again. Faces, colors, so much obscurity in a room full of children who hadn't learned to eat with proper utensils. My fingers tensing and eyes flinching at the child who sat left of the board; a cartoon character befittingly splattered on the front of his shirt, blue Jordache jeans and his finger so far in his nose he could poke a memory. I still felt my head spinning in madness. 

_Why?_ I thought, _Why did I have to be placed in the room with imbeciles who wouldn't know Purel--from spit!_

Sincerely speaking, I was just as disgusted with myself for adjusting to this group of heathens. Coming to a close understanding, but never conforming. Those were the initial days of the first instincts I've ever gained as a human being; observing the public in complete discretion. I could have used my willful duties as a foreign spy but I wasn't about to waste my talents watching the affluent. I could have excelled as a paparazzo, but I hadn't been the type to bury myself in trash cans, closets or lawsuits for a shot of the wealthy. Instead, I spent days in plain sight, being a voyeur of the unknowing, a sleuth of the nodding, sighing and complacently woeful passengers of public transportation.

I spent late mornings going to class just watching them. They all seemed so comfortable, so at ease with their filthy surroundings. I looked around and all I could see was the bacteria slithering on the poles and hand rails. They were all so hopeful to get to where they were going on time that conjunctivitis wasn't standing in their way. I scoured, lightly redirecting my peripheral view and watched as another blank canvas entered the car.

 _ **Female:**_ About five feet--six inches, of Spanish descent, chestnut hair hangs neatly at her shoulders. She takes a seat in the aisle across from me, but two rows ahead. She places her purse comfortably on her lap and taps away. No rings or tan lines present on her fingers so we both had something in common. Her latent demeanor stares out of the window of the passing train with an ambiguous smirk. She wore scrubs and nameless, black sneakers.

 ** _Single._**  
 ** _Nurse._**  
 ** _Mother_** \--Along with those scrubs was a small stain of mashed sweet potatoes and carrots near the pocket of her pants that stood out in a proud orange crust.

Our lives hadn't resembled each others in the slightest bit; the objective in being invisible is to search for the invisible in plain sight. What really makes it interesting is going completely unnoticed staring down complete strangers. It was a daunting task but someone had to do it. Fanatics wouldn't be the word I would use to compare the fleeting feeling of awkwardly surveying random people. There were no words that fit best, honestly.

She grabs the handle of the empty seat getting up and goes over to the automatic sliding doors. That smirk stupidly slid across her face as the train whizzed past those standing on the platform. More blanks. She taps impatiently on the handle rails. Her foot bobs up and down on her toes as she waits for the train to come to that slow, agonizing holt. The doors open and she flies out, only to be embraced by a man, almost twice her size. An older gentleman, hair greying on the sides and nurturing hands. They walked off of the platform and to the stairs of the concourse.

I sat grimacing. This was an everyday routine now. Scout, survey, pout, repeat. The position came with a little covetous reluctance; not that I wanted to be that kid probing his nose for treasure, or the junkie sat biting his nails. I didn't want to be that 5PM crowd who lived in the suburbs and had cars but took the train for irony. I didn't want to be any of these things. I wanted to be a blank canvas one day. Someone whose emotions, thoughts and general feelings couldn't be purveyed from my exterior. The thoughts of vulnerability and apparent weakness was what took the pleasure away from it most days. For the rest of the ride, I just stared blankly out of the window for moments to pass, inventing a blank canvas for myself.

That day was going to play out differently. I wasn't going to be bullshitting in school, pretending to shame myself for not bringing a sketch pad on the train to draw people and how interesting they were. That day, I was going to be a blank canvas for someone with a degree; someone paid to tell me that I might as well get start upping my dosage of Xanax and prescriptions to keep me sane. Their children ate off plates financed by the secrets of a thirty-six year-old lawyer who is still living the consequences of her problematic youth. Imported furnishings in a Victorian that sat high on a hill; that came from telling a man that his wife was rather sick of his couch potato antics. Duvets and luxe lights filling the master suite--funded by sad sacks, jittery twenty-somethings and anxious, upper-class teenagers.

Where was I going to fit in? I was neither of those. I didn't know what was wrong with me, I just knew everything was wrong with me. No leather padded chaise lounge was ready for what I was about to bring.

My stop approached. My eyes were so dry from me forgetting to blink, they watered. I bit my lip pensively regretting even letting the issue of all issues _(my mother)_ talking me in to seeing a shrink. It was almost hard to pass up as she was willing to pay for it. Though, it would just be used on a hopeless trip to Anguilla to try and pull together her failing marriage; she just wanted to see me be something bigger than myself. I couldn't fault her for that, but in everything I voluntarily bowed out of _(See: art school, healthy relationships with people, etc.,),_ she never forgot to embellish any chagrin I felt. She just wanted to _fix me;_ couldn't do it herself, seeing as she hadn't known what was initially out-of-order. She made the decision to pay someone else to find out.

"Whatever…" I sigh, I walked up the stairs to the concourse. I stood grimacing at the sunless sky. It was already so grim underground, it was sad to see that the sun wasn't up to making any appearances today. There was a cloud that hung over the city in an impenetrable autumn haze. I pulled my leather biker jacket closer to me as the wind whipped through my straight ebony hair. I walked a block further in the direction of the address I was given to the Amazing Shrink. I didn't know much about her, I knew that she was an older woman and that she talked over cosmopolitans and old fashions with my mother on numerous occasions.

I felt my phone vibrate through my bag. I pause, moving to the side of the hustle and bustle of New York City pedestrian traffic. I could tell by the length of the vibration, that it had been a text message. I rolled my eyes knowing no one I cared for, not that I particularly cared for anyone, was trying to communicate with me. I pulled my phone out, seeing that I was right.

**_You busy tonight?_ **

I looked up to the sky, almost asking for a comet to come down and plummet directly into the face of my phone. I stood there, slowly breathing and half-wishing I changed my number months ago. I stood there and realized that all--or most--of my issues were people. I was two blocks from this "shrink" and I was already making inward progress. I was proud of _me._ _People are your problem,_ I thought. I nodded knowing that I was going to find that fix.

**_Nope. See you around 7._ **

And in that exact moment, I lost my will to finding the fix. I had my unhealthy yearning for meaningless sex that stood in my way. It was the bully that smacked my hand out of the way when I was reaching a breaking point to obtaining reasonably healthy relationships. After a couple bruised digits, I presumed they weren't meant for me. An orgasm was an orgasm and at least I was getting something out of it too.

I placed my phone back into my bag, pretending I didn't let myself down; not that it would had been the first time. Honestly, I really should have gotten used to it by now. I was a block away and I could see the tall glass building towering everything in its path. My stomach grew awkward butterflies who flew into each other blindly, knocking one another out in the process. I stood in front of the building and let it conquer me. I felt like Jack, ready to slay the ogre-like Giant. But I didn't have a sword, and I barely had a voice strong enough to scare it. 

_Oh well,_ I thought. _What's the worst that could happen?_

This woman knew my mother who, I'm sure, is not even from this planet. She felt entertained enough by her to go to happy hour with her on Wednesdays--I'll be a cake walk.

I walked into an open door that was held by a man with a navy shirt and dusty light-washed jeans on. He wore a baseball cap, too. It had a truck logo on it, that matched the small logo on the shirt. He must have been a mover of some sort.

"Thanks." I smiled.

"My pleasure!" He piped. I didn't hassle the receptionist, as I knew exactly where the office was. Many a day, I was summoned up here to console my grieving mother who decided on a fifth of vodka instead of the usual bacon-and-eggs for breakfast. Walking through the lobby, there were a group of men moving the a leather patted chaise in the direction of the exit. I thought nothing of it as I continued padding my Converse laden feet up the corridor.

The only thing I could think of was making sure I let this woman know that I was nothing like my mother. 

_I'm nothing like her, I'm nothing like her,_ I chanted in my head, pressing the button of an elevator. 

The doors were a beautiful cherry-oak with comforting baroque designs carved into them precisely. I watched the analog dials countdown, popping my foot up and down impatiently. That was definitely another thing that I was going to pledge to work on--my intolerance of waiting. I was doing so well already, hadn't even gotten into the room yet.

The doors open to men and women dressed fully in pant suits, business suits, pencil skirts and blazers. Not taking three seconds to notice me, many of them too busy on their devices to realize that they bumped into me. I heaved a long sigh and waited for the grey and black muted sheep to clear out of the elevator and I stepped in. The doors remained wide open for thirty seconds, I look around the corner and make sure no one is coming before I let the doors shut. Relief washes over me as I was alone; I had an odd affinity for being alone in elevators. I watched analog dials count up to my floor, the 11th floor.

I grew a little more anxious as the numbers slowly turned into each other. The elevator dings as it finally reaches eleven. I hastily walk forward before the doors have a chance to open. Before I could look up, I brushed shoulders with a mess of medium length hair and a pair of hands glued to a phone. On impact, the phone flew out of his hands and into the air in slow motion. The two of us stood there and watched it gracefully dance through midair. Within seconds, it dismounted on the grey carpet. In a frenzy, I grabbed it as it was still very much intact. Without a word, I picked it up and held my mouth agape as an apology was left gurgling in my throat.

"Oh my--my God, I'm so sorry," I pleaded. The phone, thankfully, unscathed. I handed it back to the stranger as a small playful smile played across his unshaven face. His mess of untamed, medium-length, dark-auburn hair framed his small face. Dull blue eyes poked through what his hair hadn't been covering, but they weren't glancing in my direction.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it," I wanted to say sorry again, but then I realized my mouth was still open. "This thing's old anyway. Reckon I get a new one soon, yeah?" My first thought was to giggle a cute sigh but his accent caught me way off guard. His smile was a little crooked, but adorably-crooked. "See ya." He waved in my direction but not at me. _Weird,_ I thought.

"See ya next week, James," Before turning around, I heard a deeper voice, slightly mimicking the accent the stranger formally-know-as-James spoke with. This was much richer, more fastened at the hems and you could tell it was almost trained. Getting lost in _Diction 101,_ I remembered that I was still facing the elevator like an idiot, a petrified lamb. Heaving a deep breath, I turned and walked down the rest of the corridor. I didn't catch a glimpse of the person behind me, as he disappeared into the office he came out of. There was one more office left down from his in the narrow hall, this was my destination. The offices were placed far apart, I guess for privacy reasons. It was a good thing that stranger formally-know-as-James or the Other-British Shrink, couldn't hear my mother's drunken cackles when she visited.

What a blessing. 

I arrived to the door with an ounce of confidence. I couldn't wait for her to help me get my shit together, but I wasn't really fond of the process. I hated opening up to complete strangers, especially the ones who knew of my mother. I curled my long fingers into a ball and placed three audible knocks on the door. I waited around for nothing when I did it again. Out of my peripheral, I could see Other-British Shrink stand outside of his door, casually leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his head in the direction of the elevators across from his office. 

"She left last week," I turned toward the sound of the rolling bravado in his vocal chords. He sighs, walking slowly toward me. I shrivel in fear. He didn't serve as a threat but his voice was just so broad it snapped that ounce of confidence I had. I stand in the same position with my head tilted slightly, watching him walk slowly. He was dressed business casual. He had a chambray button-down with dark-washed denim and John Varvatos Hipster shoes. 

He stops five feet away from me. "She was one thigh-rub away from a lawsuit, that one," I guess that was shrink humor. "I'm Ben," I could feel him slowly surveying me without having me know it. I looked up with eyes devoid of any readable emotion to his figure that stood at least a-half-a-foot over me. He had neat-short, dark brown (almost black) hair, that had hints of red in it. One side was pushed back, the other in perfect waves that crest behind his ear. His eyes were unbelievable--almond shaped with blue-green crescents filling them. They were a little too-far-apart as he had a distinctive look about him. His cheekbones sat proudly under them. They were as sharp and polished as he was. His top lip formed the perfect Cupid's bow and his bottom lip--full. In that moment, I guess we stood as blank canvasses to each other. "And you--" He holds out his large-long-fingered-hand as a welcoming gesture. I slowly raise mine to meet his. "--you must be Natasha," He gives it a firm shake, warming my nervous clammy palms. 

"Yeah…" I gave him a skeptical glare, negating the trust of his British tongue. That was the only reply I could muster. Deep down, I was cursing my mother for neglecting to tell me her shrink skipped town. 

_I could ring her drunken gullet,_ I thought. 

Shrink--formally-known-as-Ben kept this omniscient smirk on his long face. Kind of making all of his distinctive traits come together into something that made sense. 

"You're my twelve o'clock," He turned his back to me as I was fitting to run in the other direction and skip out on this session for good. I don't even know this man. I didn't know the woman either but at least she knew what I was dealing with, I swore this shit only happened to me. I was frustrated to the point of exhaustion, I followed him into his office. It was immaculate. He shuts the door behind me. He silently motions me to sit on his lounge. Walking up to his desk, He pulls out two mugs from a cupboard. "Just in time for tea." He sighs. 

This _was_ the worst that could happen. 


	2. You Will Leave A Mark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the comments and Kudos! They are much appreicated, so appreciated they've earned you an update! Yay!!!!

In a calculating order, my fingertips tapped softly onto the leather lounge. His back faced me as he calmly stirred two mugs of steaming tea simultaneously. Everything about his demeanor was so serene, I could tell by the way his shoulder blades shifted in unison with his hands working the silver spoons. 

Suddenly, the stirring ceases and he gives a curious glance over his left shoulder. I watch slowly as his long neck contorts, like a snake switching tactics. With that all-knowing smirk, he blinks and returns to the barrage of clinking silver-to-porcelain. I grip the cuffs of my leather jacket. My nails almost digging into the seams--I was so put-off by his patient heir.

"You know," He lifts a tray off of the counter and onto his desk, that smirk still playing on his lips; unscathed by the concentration in how softly he lie the tray onto the front of his desk. He snickers, "You can take your jacket off, at least," Grabbing the mug from the tray, he slowly walks it over to where I'd been sitting on the leather chaise. His long arms extend to me slowly in hesitation, as if I'd slap it out of his hand and run away. Don't be mistaken; I'd thought about it. His hand was close enough to me for me to feel the steam rise from the boiling tea dampen the small hairs between my eyes. My head draws back slowly as does his hand. It wasn't likely he'd force the mug into my hands, but I couldn't be too sure.

My shoulders shifted as my jacket loosened from their poise. The jacket slinked down my arms almost too fast. He stood there with the mug closer to his chest. I concentrated on the quivering spoon as he withdrew breaths. The spoon quietly clinked against the mug again, while my hands drew themselves threw the sleeves. He smiles an unreadable grin as my arms are free of the contracting pleather and I reach out to handle the warm mug. My trembling fingers, much like the spoon rattling around, they hooked themselves into the handle as my left hand guided the bottom. 

"Thanks," It was all I could squeeze out. It came out like a squeak, that of a mouse being clawed within inches of its life. He returns to his desk, easing himself swiftly in a beautiful leather padded chair. 

Everything looked so expensive in his office, himself included. The walls were coated with shelves, and the shelves were aligned with every book that had ever been published...ever. The carpet was low, but it was soft enough to cushion the sound of footsteps. It even smelled lavish; a light lavender scent with a hint of vanilla, thinly graced the air. 

Lightly grabbing the edges of his desk, the swivel chair rolled it's way to the opposite side of the desk. 

"Pleasure's all mine," He smiles, but it goes away as he looks toward the tall book case adjacent where he sat. Reluctantly, he lifts himself from his throne and begins to search carefully for something his mine left to wander. While he wasn't looking, I took a sip. It was fairly warm as it had cooled quite a bit. It was mildly comforting as it warmed the interiors of my body and depleted the goosebumps that had risen on my arms. My hands gained their stillness grasping the heat that radiated from the mug. It had taken me a few seconds to realize he'd put sugar in it. 

_The perfect amount,_ I grimaced.

He startled me as he spoke, "My apologies," He goes over his desk drawers again. "I'm never usually this unorganized," Apparently, finding what he'd been rummaging for, he happily returns to his chair with a sigh of relief. His arm had been shielding the treasure he lurked for inside of his drawers. For a moment he blankly stared at me. I take another sip, afraid I'd offended him. "Is it the sugar?"

Almost on instinct, the mug dramatically removes itself from my lips. My eyes shoot up to him, awaiting an answer with his eyebrows furrowed slightly and his mouth pursed.

"Um--I'm sorry, what?" I stammered like a fool.

"The sugar--I put it in your tea and I neglected to ask you how you--" I cut his drawn-out strategy of analyzation off with a hasty recoil.

"It's fine," He snapped back, looking down at what lie in his lap.

"Well," He sighed. As his eyes weren't fixed on me momentarily, I had the chance to survey him again. Sadly, he already seemed sort of defeated. "I guess I should start by introducing myself," He clears his throat. In that moment, I realize he hadn't touched his tea. Before my subconscious could validate a justifiable reason for him not to even have a sip, my conscious immediately traveled to his tactics of drugging my tea. He'd already put sugar in it without asking me, I reasoned. I looked down at what was left,

 _It's much too late,_ I sighed in defeat. 

He continued looking down as he spoke. He was concentrated on something I couldn't see. With half of the mug low with tea, I finished it. 

"I'm Benedict. If you're comfortable calling me Ben, as I introduced myself, that's fine too," His eyes snapped back to me. Walking himself over to me as the wheels in his chair rotated, I handed him the mug. "First thing's first, I'm a therapist--not a shrink. I've been doing this for about two years now, so far I enjoy it," He places the mug back on to tray next to his untouched (un-drugged) tea. "I'm from England--as you can probably tell," He wheels himself to sit directly across from me. Those eyes stare down my soul relentlessly. I felt like the eyes of the entire world had me in their sites. I shriveled under his gaze. "I was born in Hammersmith, my Mother's a lawyer, my Father--a judge, and I graduated all honors from Cambridge." He finished in one breath.

_Am I supposed to compete with that?_

"Now, tell me a little about yourself," His hands remain folded on his knees. I assumed he was supposed to be taking notes. The less documented, the better. I was already annoyed as he paraded all of his awards and trophies, and perfect family--as if it meant something.

"Okay," I was wilting under that cocked eyebrow and the grin that slowly played on his face, but I've been weaker and pitted against bigger adversaries. I was going to do something that would throw him off completely. I was going to shed the feathers of the shy swallow and give him full-on hawk. I was going to be completely honest. 

"I'm Natasha," My voice shivered second-guessing my choice of strategy. I begin to revolve my thumbs around each other and focus on that alone. "I'm twenty-three, I'm a Graphic Designer who didn't finish art school--but it keeps the lights on," I was gaining that ounce of confidence back with every word. In no time, I was going o be able to look him straight in those eyes. "I was born in West Chester, raised on the lower east-side of Manhattan," That confidence evolved into full-on arrogance as our eyes battled each other for dominance. As my ploy gathered itself on its feet, I readied my defense. "My mother's an alcoholic with that rare gift of knowing what's best for everyone besides herself, and this was her idea." I finished in one breath, almost afraid he would kick me out of office, or right me a prescription to Lithium; but he didn't, he just stared. 

With nothing left to say, he bowed his head and began to softly chuckle. I tried to mask the chagrin that roused my cheeks and clammed my hands.

 _He's got his work cut out for him,_ I groaned. 

His head rose with a serious grin.

"Look," He spoke very easily but his tone made me a sunflower in the dead of winter; my leafs shook and stem was bound to snap. "You came here for a reason. You could have just-as-well walked out when you wanted to, but you didn't," I sat there humbling in his presence; devolving from hawk, to sparrow and back down to the meek swallow I resented. "There's something you want out of this," He looked down at his lap again. "I'm not here to judge you, or call you on your flaws, but this is a two-way street," His words humbled me back into reality. There were a couple of printed papers on top of two wired pads. "Here you are," He handed them to me. He zipped back to the cup on that held about sixty-three writing utensils.

"What's this?" I remained defeated in my own right. I read over the title,

**CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND MUTUAL RELEASE**

Big, bold letters in Garamond Pro, graced the top of the page, along with Ben's surname. 

_Cumberbatch,_ I held back a wild cackle, though, I made an inaudible snort. _Benedict Cumberbatch,_ I subjected my face into my palm trying to hide the humor that rolled within my chest. 

_No way can that be his real name,_ I tried to contain the fit of giggles that bottled up. 

"Read through it, if you like. It basically states that anything you confide within me, by law, cannot be discussed, distributed or reiterated to anyone else," It was nice to know that my word was safe but I couldn't tear my eyes away from that _name._ It wasn't hideous--no--it was more perplexing than anything. One-half of his name belonged to the papacy, and the other half was a drunken mesh of random letters from the alphabet. He was so prim and astute, I wasn't surprised that he'd introduced himself as Ben, too bad there was no shortening his last name.

"I know a confidentiality agreement when I see one," I quipped, grazing through some of the lines and flipping the page over to sign. With an annoyed sigh, I scribbled my signature on the line provided. "Here," My lips curled in an inevitable grin, thinking back to that mess of letters. _**"Cumberbatch,"**_ I snorted, trying to keep a straight face, but failing miserably. It sounded even more ludicrous bounding through my lips. So many consonants! 

"Is it funny?" His smirk wasn't as playful as before.

"It' hilarious," His smile grows wider as he looks down at the writing pads on his lap.

"I have to say, I'm overjoyed you have a sense of humor," He mumbled with the rise and fall of his right brow. "For a moment, I could have sworn I was talking to a wet-paper bag," He clears his throat with a hint of ambiguity. Another exhausted sigh leaves the presence of my lungs as he hands me a writing pad. "But, I'm more than content with you exuding some type of emotion," Apparently, he wasn't game for putting up with any of my shit.

"What's this for?" I took it and nervously began clicking the retractable bottom on the pen, awaiting an answer.

"It's our first exercise," He flips the cover over, opening the book to a blank page. "I want you to write your name on the cover," I began to quickly print my name sloppily on the cover. "Legibly, please," I roll my eyes. I continue in a neater form. "Perfect. Now, open it to the first page," I did so, smacking the end of the pen against the paper. I really didn't want to keep annoying him, but it was so entertaining to push him to snarky counteracts and frustration. I didn't know why, but I loved it. This wasn't usually how I behaved around a perfect stranger, but something about him urged me to give him that reaction.

"Now what," He became increasingly impatient by the minute. I contemplated carefully how long it was going to take for him to refer me to another therapist, or kick me out of his office altogether.

"At the count of three, I'm going to ask you a question in which we'll both jot down a one-word answer at the same time. I'm going to try and match the answer you've written. After it's written, rip it off and throw it on the floor in front of you," He instructed politely. This had to be some summer camp-sleepover-bullshit, I've ever heard of. Were these even real methods? 

"Is this really going to--"

 _"Just,"_ He warrants. His voice was at a normal speaking tone but his bravado was what startled me. "Do as I've instructed, please," He readies his pen.

"Fine," Retorting, I did the same.

"Great," He positioned himself upright in his chair. "On three: one…two…three," He counted down, studying my demeanor. I sat back on the lounge with my legs crossed and the pad on my lap. Even if I never wanted to admit it, I was adjusting. "Favorite movie?" I almost went to write it, until I realized,

"Are you really going to try and guess that?" He looked around the room as if I had asked him something irregular.

"Yes," _Duh,_ was what he really wanted to say. "Now write, please,"

**Wait Until Dark**

It was late 60's Audrey Hepburn film that cast her as a blind woman who fought of crooks, one of them played by Alan Arkin. It was truly my favorite, even though I'd liked to write something sarcastic.

I ripped the paper off of the wire and through it down in front of me. He hadn't even paid attention to it as he was still writing. With a sly smirk, he threw his paper down,

_**Girl Interrupted.** _

_Asshole,_ As it was apparently only funny to him.

"Very funny," His laugh was quiet but it was as rich as his voice; bouncing off his vocal chords in deep tones.

"Okay," He giggled once more and straightened himself out. "That was just an example, I'm going to ask you questions that require much needed concentration. If you need to think about it, that's absolutely okay, I won't throw mine out until you're done," I nodded and awaited his next question.

"Who is someone you currently trust in your life?" That took nothing to think about,

**No one**

We threw our papers down almost at the exact second. I was too busy gearing for the next question to see what he had written. 

"What makes you the happiest?" This question definitely took some digging deep to answer. I only really remember being happy when I was much younger. Maybe, thirteen years from then. Even then, I couldn't pinpoint what made me happy, because it was probably something completely illegal. I thought menially.

**Money**

I scribbled it, throwing it down onto my pile of papers to see that he wasn't finished writing yet. My eyes darted down to see what he had written for the last question, 

_**Boyfriend.**_

There it was, in scribbled letters that I could barely read. And somehow, I could read it clearly. It didn't have to be legible, or in cursive, or in big bold Times New Roman. It sort of saddened me.

He threw out another,

_**Loneliness.** _

It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me. It wasn't the sharp letters that killed me, it was the accuracy of it. I didn't know whether to be apprehensive or…I just didn't know…

"What makes you the unhappiest?"

Another easy one...

**People**

I felt oddly content with this exercise. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to like it; that would be playing in his hand, and I wasn't about to forfeit all of my secrets to someone like him. I just enjoyed not having to say any of this aloud; I wasn't as evasive or nervous as I was coming into this. He might have been onto something, after all. Though, I wasn't about to admit that to myself.

For that answer he had thrown down _**Loneliness**_ in another ugly handwritten response.

"Now, this one is going to be a little different. List me three things you want out of our sessions," I wasn't even sure how often or how many times I had to see him. This was all so informal, but I wasn't about to give up now. I started to ponder what I truly wanted in the first place…

**1) Stability**

That was a good one, I think everyone could use a bit of stability. I knew I needed a gratuitous amount to stay away from a padded cell.

**2) Trust**

I wrote that knowing that it wasn't going to just appear out of thin air. It was going to take some serious solitude and a better attitude to learn to trust anyone or anything…or to even be trusted.

**3) I want to be fixed**

The words almost wrote themselves. I thought about my long quest up to the offices and remembered that was all I could think about. I just wanted to be fixed.

He finished writing.

"Now, instead of throwing them down, we'll exchange them," This was nerve-wrecking. I hardly knew this man, how was I supposed to show him things I only thought to myself? He held his paper out to me proudly, as I was more than hesitant to hand him mine. He cleared his throat, noticing my holding out. "Thank you," We exchanged them gently between each other. Before looking down, he spoke, "Remember, everything you say or do is protected by that agreement you signed. And I'm not here to put anything past you," He, then looked down and began to examine the paper carefully. Watching him, I almost forgot to do the same.

_**emotional stability.** _

How did this man get into high school with what he called penmanship? Though, he was dead-on, that was something everyone needs in general.

_**Solidarity/a voice** _

_Touche,_ I thought. It wasn't as vague as the first. It made close-to-perfect sense, in all actuality. One thing I did seek was harmony within myself. I was slightly skeptical, but more so curious, on how he came up with these answers.

_**FINISH YOUR STORY** _

The last one was weird. Honestly, I hadn't understood what he was getting at with it. He was spot-on with the first two--the second, especially. I just wasn't sure where he was coming from with this. Although, that had been his nature. It seemed he hid behind his own obscurity as if he was hiding some special power. The obscurity within him fit his weird name and uncanny facial features.

"Hmm," He began with an uncertain observation. 

"What?" I don't know what made me so curious of his opinions, but I was. I was probably under that psycho-babble voodoo people talk about…by people, I mean my mother after her fifth shot of Johnny Walker Black.

"Do you feel you're broken?" It was an obscure question, but I had the answer rolling somewhere around my noggin. He wanted me to have more of a voice, anyway.

"I--" He ditches the writing pad onto his desk and gives me his undivided attention. "I don't feel as put-together--" I had to gather my words correctly, in fear, I hadn't been using the right ones. He graduated Cambridge University at the top of his class; so I hadn't finished art school but I wasn't about to sound like an imbecile. "I don't feel as composed as I once felt. I feel like…" I searched for something to follow up with. I thought he'd interject but he listened. I mean, that was his job. "I don't feel like I can relate, or understand anyone else…myself especially," His eyes turned softly as his facial expression followed. "There's a void, you know…" My voice weakly trailed off.

"But you're far from broken, Natasha," I gulped holding an emotional breakdown back and cleared my throat. "Do you medicate that void frequently?" I couldn't give him an answer, even though I knew it. I was positive _he_ knew it. He withdrew himself as he didn't want to push the issue any further. He probably sensed the storm rising in my chest and the clouds that misted in my eyes. 

"What did you mean by this?" I turned the page toward him and pointed at his handwriting. He smiled a thoughtful smile.

"The last thing you told me, as I recall it, was that your mother--a drunkard--suggested you come here and seek help," 

"Right,"

"The last thing you told me about yourself was that you were raised in Manhattan; there's more to your wanton quips and your--" He gets lost in his own answer. I watch as he exaggerates every word with the motion of his stem-like fingers. "--your sarcastic tendencies. There's a part of you that wants to do better and it's best to know exactly why that fire burns."

 _What the fuck acting school did this asshole come from?_ I was beside myself, almost to the point of an applause. 

"Okay," I breathed. I went to hand his paper back to him and he handed me a manilla folder instead.

"I want you to keep that in this," He hands me the folder, he has his own as well. I place the paper inside of it as I watch him pick up the heap of papers we made on the carpet. 

"How often do we have to do this--these sessions?" He took his eyes off of the floor and gave me that obscure smirk again.

"Until you feel this is useless to you,"

 _HA!_

"I'd like to see you at least twice a week until we really start making progress," He returned to placing the papers in the folder. It made sense, it was nice to know he wasn't keeping me there against the will of all of my issues needing to be repaired.

He rolled his chair back to its rightful position, behind his desk as he checked his watch. 

"Well," He walks over to me after scribbling something down on paper. He doesn't return it to me in the process. "I think that's all the time we have for today," He walked over to me as I stood and realized my butt fell asleep. I grabbed my jacket and purse from behind me and folded them over my arm. 

Thank God, I honestly couldn't handle anymore of it but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

"I think we made some striving efforts today; what do you say?" We locked eyes as he stood mere centimeters away from me. I could smell the cologne he wore; it was a soft, masculine scent of neroli and a bed of fully bloomed roses. It was oddly comforting.

"Yeah…" I nodded and gave him a small smile.

"It was nice meeting you, Natasha," The way he said my name, though! What was happening to me?

 _Pyscho-babble voodoo,_ My eyes squint for a second as I stuck out my hand.

"It's nice meeting you too, Benedict Cumberbatch," I couldn't help but giggle. This time, I didn't feel like I needed to hold it back. "Honestly, it sounds like Dr. Seuss," I couldn't stop myself.

"That's something I haven't heard before," I was sure to sense the sarcasm that parted his lips.

"I'm sorry," I gathered myself, clearing my throat. "I'll see you--"

"Wednesday, same time," It was just Monday, after all. "And you don't have to apologize, it was funny," It was the first time that day his voice didn't sound threatening.

"Okay, I'll see you then. Thanks." I opened the door to leave.

"Pleasure's all mine." He waved from the door way. I walked to the elevator and pulled out my phone. Unlocking the screen I realized what time it was.

_2:17PM_

"Shit…" I didn't have any plans that day, thankfully but two hours had gone and went. I also realized I needed a cigarette.

_Bad._

 

Coming from the building, the sun hadn't made it's public appearance yet. As long as it hadn't begun raining yet, I was content. I turned into the alley and stood against the wall. There was a steel door that lead into the back way of the building. I exhaled, proud of myself that I sat two hours in a room--with a stranger--and didn't piss myself in anxiety or fear. The realization set in when I realized that I was going to be seeing him for God-knows how long and for twice a week. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. 

I snapped back to the real reason I standing in that alley.

_I need a smoke._

I opened my purse, instinctively grabbing the box of Marlboro Lites at the top. The only issue was, that weren't there. I scavenged around my purse like a squirrel looking for an invisible nut. 

_Lighter._  
Phone.  
Wallet.  
Keys.  
 **FUCK!**

They were nowhere to be found.

"Shit…" I searched a little more, as the opening of the side door went unnoticed.

"Looking for these?" A familiar accent snapped me out of the hunt. I looked up to see Ben with that smirk that made all of his features like a masterpiece.

_Ew._

"Thanks," I looked down, almost ashamed that he found me jonesing for an inhale. He stood next to me and did that weird staring thing he does. His right hand reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a lighter. The cigarette lies in between my middle and index fingers as he hitches a spark. At that point, I couldn't conceal the nicotine craving from anyone. I watched the tip burn just enough for the ash to show. I withdrew it from the flame and inhaled at once. I closed my eyes, relishing the small moment of revelry in that alleyway. I looked to Ben who sported his addiction to nicotine quite proudly. The yellow box of Natural American Spirits were tucked into his right-front pocket.

"You know," He inhaled without taking his eyes off of me, and exhaled through his teeth. "Those patches don't work," I was the first to snort in a small fit of unnerved giggles and that laugh rolled through the two of us; quite possibly scaring a couple passersby. Without registering it, I began to watch him laugh-inhale-exhale--repeat. I remembered being skeptical of him drugging my tea and laughed even harder.

 _Maybe he's not that stiff,_ I contemplated wile taking another drag.

_Maybe._


	3. Cough Syrup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medicating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is a little later than expected. This is more of a filler chapter than anything. Doesn't include Ben at all but it's a great segway to the chapters to follow!

Frozen, sat fearfully on a stool in a smokey bar in Brooklyn. Tom Petty's "Free Falling" blared on the jukebox speakers and the Phillies were creaming the Oreoles on a Magnavox on mute. A stranger approached me with the breath of an inebriated, fire-breathing dragon. It was hot on my neck and until I turned around, he wouldn't stop undressing me with his eyes.

"May I help you?" I turned slowly, almost half-expecting it to be Ben again, as it would have set up the perfect irony. Facing said stranger completely, my subconscious saddened as it was not him; wanting to finish a conversation about nicotine patches and their many faults, or how the gum gave him a cavity. The man sat there with tired eyes and a rusty beard, just waiting for me to turn. His hair hung down to his shoulders in a wavy textured mess. 

"Let me uh--" He stammered momentarily sizing me up. I snarled and turned back to the game. They were three-and-oh. "--get you something to warm you up," His perverse tongue ran across the outside of his top lip strategically as my decline tumbled out of my voice box.

"No, thank you," He withdrew his body inches away from mine as his eyes grew a small flame. Pressing his hands onto the bar top, he dismissed himself from the stool and backed away.

"Fine," He declares, drunkenly backing himself into the jukebox. "I only like girls with D cups, anyways," He spat, chuckling his way to the men's room. The entire bar, crowded with the late-lunch crowd, had been disgusted by his account, but one guest more put-off than the others. I hadn't even noticed this guy walk in, so it made more sense that he'd been in there before me. His stature stood shorter than the stranger, though that wasn't stopping him from forcing an inaudible verbal beating onto him. They both stood beside the jukebox bantering violently as the bar stood still with suspense rolling thick through the air. The jukebox intentionally cuts off right before the men have submitted themselves to bouts of flailing fists and broken teeth.

"No, fuck you!" Spat the guest. His tone rang loud but there was something interesting about his diction.

"You wanna fuckin' go, huh?" The stranger towered over him as if to intimidate. They begin to close in on each other like prey and predator. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be breaking these beasts up or just sit there and not ruin my solid complexion with a black and blue shadow.

Tommy, the bar owner, rushes out of the back room behind the bar with his infamous bat, infamously named 'The Peacemaker'. He separates the men by parting them with the bat. The battle of testosterone quickly ceases when Tommy starts to grind into them both with words. His tattooed arms wielding the bat, slapping it into his hands.

"Look at you, causing all of this commotion," Dana puts a shot of Fireball in front of me. Her hair was thrown up into a messy bun so you could predominantly see most of her blond coloring. You could also see light tints of temporary colors she'd applied to her hair, like a fading rainbow. She had piercings all the way down her cartilage and gauged lobes. She was a couple years older than me, but was the sweetest human being there was.

"What's this for?" She giggles as she mixed a drink for another patron.

"Your boy from across-the-pond," Her head nods in the direction opposite of the side of the bar I'd been sitting. She rushes the order over to the patron before she could even see the look on my face. I tilt my body forward, and I don't see anyone familiar, except the shorter guest who stood up for me.

 _Maybe it was him,_ I pondered. Leaning myself back, I got a glimpse of his shabby hair and it instantly came to me.

"James," I said in a hushed tone. Even with Bon Jovi destroying my eardrums, he could still hear me. His head popped up from the pensive swigs he took from his drink. I turned, pretending as if I didn't see him notice me but it was much too late. I look to the empty seat next to mine, I guess I couldn't deny him a conversation as he almost gotten his ass beat because of me. With a childish glow on his rugged face, he skips over to the stool next to me. "What was all that about?" It slipped through my mouth faster than I could stop it.

"He disrespected you," He justified himself with that adorable accent. I was gradually growing accustomed to everyone I met that day being British. "I couldn't have just let that happened," He exasperated over the growling guitar color.

"Did you see how big he was, though? You could have gotten your ass handed to you in a lunchbox!" We chuckled. The moment sobered, as I figured I owed him thanks. "Thanks, though. I appreciated but I would suggest you not--" He cackles bowing his head and gaining a breath. "Get your ass beat for a girl when you don't even know her name!" I warned. His giggles subsided as he held his hand out.

"James, as you already know," His smile was very warm, he had been more sober than I thought.

"Natasha," I took his hand and gave it a firm shake.

"So, Natasha," It was something about that accent and the way my name sounded like a sacred scripture. I loved it! "Are you going to just let that sit there?" I looked to the lonely shot and sighed.

"We should do a shot together, since we're seeing the same therapist, you know," James nods in agreement, as Dana comes back over with a lovely smirk. She was almost jumping out of her skin to keep from giggling like a school girl.

"Can I get you guys another shot?" She read my mind and we made mischievous eye-to-eye glances.

"Yeah, another shot of Fireball, please," James had an open tab. "How do you like him so far?" My mind had to regroup and compute the question correctly.

"It's uh--" _Mind regrouping._ "It's not something that I'm quite used to so…I guess it's just different," I shrug.

"He's a really good guy, Ben," He nods. "His methods are a little--uh--" He uses his hands describe what he's trying to say,

"Off?" I laugh, trying to finish his sentence.

"Yeah, yeah--that," He points to me. "But he's gotten me through a great deal," It was nice to know from someone else's perspective that Ben wasn't up to poisoning teas and having a secret _modus operandi._

"He seems like it," Dana comes back over with the shot she poured while she helped another customer.

"Here you are, kind sir," She puts it on the bar top in front of him, mocking his accent. We all can't help but to repair from heaving fits of laughter.

"Thank you so much. You can put this on my tab," Dana nods as she goes back to her register. He grabs his shot and gestures to grab mine. I wasn't much of a whiskey drinker, as all of my favorites were clear, but James seemed like he had good taste. I could just tell by the Joy Division shirt he wore along with his Diesel jeans. "You ready?" He raises the shot glass to his nose.

"Sure am!" I do the same. It smelled very comforting. It warmed me just from smelling it.

"To issues and--" He looks around for something else to toast to.

"C cups!" I cackle.

"To C cups!" We toast and simultaneously throw the shots back at the same time. The whiskey was surprisingly tasty. It had a spicy, cinnamon flavor to it, something like Big Red Gum or Red Hots candies. As soon as it shot down my throat it warmed my entire body. I shook and closed my eyes as it hit me. My mouth felt warm and my ears burned, but it was a good feeling overall. James took his like it was nothing and cleared his throat.

__________________________________

 

We sat there for a little while longer, as I returned the favor and bought the two of us a shot of Grey Goose Pear. We talked vaguely about our lives and how we ended up in New York City. Ben would pop up in the conversation every now and then but it hadn't been anything worth remembering. He told me about growing up in Glasgow, and wanting to be a musician, and how his parents were furious after they scent him through 'university'. His tongue was so foreign, the slang intrigued me. We talked about our love for music, and movies, and alcohol. Soon enough, time had reminded him of another engagement he was due to appear. With a sweet goodbye hug, we exchanged numbers and he departed.

It was around **5:30** when the sun began to set and ten minutes after James left the bar. The crowd began to fill-in with suits and briefcases as people exited their daily grind for a few drinks and a broken jukebox.

"He was cute!" Dana playfully slaps my arm as she withdraws herself from her black apron. She came from behind the bar with that stupid, giddy look plastered on her pale face. "Did you get his number?" I rolled my eyes, slowly feeling the effects of the brown and clear liquor commingling.

"Yeah, I uh--" My brain was going a little fuzzy, but it was a good fuzzy. "He's pretty cool," Her eyes widened as she sat in his seat next to me.

"Pretty cool?" She exasperated. "If Tommy hadn't settled that, he'd be pretty _dead!_ " She cackled loudly, so much so, that everyone in the bar had been looking at us.

"Are you ready, or what?" Dana lived in the same building I lived in, so our plan was to walk home together. She nods, I grab my bag as she went in the back room to fetch her belongings.

 

"How was therapy?" That seemed to be the topic of the length of our walk before we got to our complex. Dana was one of the only people I told about it. I'd known her for quite some time as she was my boss's college roommate. Dana considered me for the position at her advertising firm and vouched for me to move into the building we lived in. I owed it to her, to confide in her a little.

"It was--" Summing up my experience of my therapist being an unorthodox professional with the name, that of a Dr. Seuss character. "--interesting,"

"Is it male or female?" We cross the street with linked arms as the sun meets the tops of the buildings ahead of us.

"Male, he's British--" She stops in her tracks.

"What is with you and being surrounded by British men? Is he hot?" I chuckle as we continue walking.

"He's handsome," My tongue's honesty had been due to the amount of liquor I consumed. Ben was handsome, even though his facial features were reminiscent of a vaguely attractive otter, it wasn't just the tone of his voice that deemed him a man worthy of a GQ cover. "He's not immediately handsome, though,"

"Like James, he was hot, immediately!" She replies.

"James sees him too," I omit with ease.

"What," All of this information seemed too much for her to handle. "You're telling me that your gorgeous, British bar mate, shares your handsome, English therapist? It must be so hard being you," She says with sarcasm thick on her tongue.

"He's not my bar mate," I retort.

"Sure, sure," She gives in as we arrive on our block. "Do you have any plans tonight?" I'm reluctant to tell her that I do, and with whom.

"Yeah…I do, actually," My eyes take direction to looking down at my sneakers.

"Oh yeah, with who?" I looked up to give her the you-know-who look with a helpless stare. "You're kidding me!"

"I wish I was, I just can't--"

"He's married, Tash!" It hit me harder when she said it. It wasn't healthy, but he gave me something that I felt I needed in order to feel good again. 

"You don't think I know that!" I snapped, we walk into our building's lobby. "Scott says it's been over since June and when he's ready to tell her--" She cuts me off again.

"Do you really think he's going to leave her?" She looked up to me with sincere eyes. Scott was my high school sweetheart. He moved away to attend the University of Pennsylvania at the end of our Senior year in high school as we ended our relationship. Somehow, through Dana, our paths crossed again and I unknowingly had been working for his wife, Kate. Before discovering he was married, he'd taken me out--wined me, dined me, bought me an expensive wardrobe, and taken me on vacations I'd never forget. I was more than devastated when he waltzed through the office, completely bypassing where I sat clueless in front of a computer screen, and rushed into her office with an embrace and longing kiss.

That scene play in my head as Dana still gave me the shameful glare of a million scorned women. She turned her head to wave at the front desk night auditor. 

"He doesn't even come see her anymore," I try to convince the two of us. We walk our way to the elevators and wait. Rachel wasn't the best person, but she didn't deserved to be cheated on; no one deserves to be.

"He's a creep--point blank. Period." She finished. My tipsy mind was annoyed with her judgement. I deemed her jealous of what I had. Even though, that was someone else's unfaithful husband.

 _He was mine first,_ I protested.

We walked into the elevator waging a peaceful war in our minds. She got out first, as it reached her floor.

"I guess I'll see you around," She declared defeated.

"Yeah, I'll text you," I called after her waving.

 

_______________________________

 

My head pounded with pressure. Scott and I lie in a heap of body parts coated in a thin layer of sweat and a heavy coating of guilt. He'd given me a good hour-and-a-half of an erect penis and every-now-and-then-grunts. Thinking back on a few minutes ago, where he was pounding me from behind, clasping his hand hard onto my throat and told me I was the only one for him. I basked in that light for a few minutes, not wanting to ruin the silence.

"How's about Cancun?" He turns to me on his side. I was left in this post-coital haze.

"What about it?" I look to him, his gelled-back, dirty blond hair maintained its style through all of the physical extremities. 

"We should go, you know…after…" His voice trails in uncertain destiny. I gave some of what Dana said clear thought.

 _Was he really going to leave her?_ Quite frankly, I was getting tired of seeing him visit her with bouquets of pink and yellow roses and Godiva chocolates. Apologetic eyes and she didn't even know what he was so sorry for, she thought he'd been the perfect husband.

 _When was that going to be me?_ I always thought. I knew I would have to switch jobs if that were the case. I wouldn't be able to stand the awkward silences and heartbreak in her eyes if he was ever to bound in with roses and chocolate for me. 

"I'm going to tell her," 

"What exactly are you going to say?" I looked to him with a sobered glare.

"I'm going to tell her about us," He defined. I would be humiliated, not to mention, out of a job. "She has to know that I've found someone else," He takes my hand in his and begins to trail soft kisses up my arm. I still wasn't very excited about all of this. I mean, she would probably be completely heartbroken, distraught, scorned mostly. I wasn't sure how serious he was until now. I honestly, didn't know how to continue the conversation. "We've been having issues for months, it's not like she won't see it coming," He continues to press warmer kisses on my shoulders as he leads to the nape of my neck. It felt good, hell, it felt amazing--but it was so wrong. He didn't belong to me, he hadn't belonged to me in such a long time. 

_What am I supposed to do?_ Before I knew it, he had already gotten on top of me and we were back at it again. I wasn't able to say anything to protest because his mouth had taken over mine in a heated battle for dominance. He was the best thing I couldn't have again, and I was the girl on the other side of the impending doom. 

"The only one for me," He growled into my ears all I could muster was a moan.

He had me again.

 

_______________________________

 

I showered that night, washing all evidence of Scott down the drain. I couldn't go back to work tomorrow with his scent fresh on my skin, she'd notice. It was bad enough I had to look her square in the eyes after her husband had me all over my apartment, knocking things over and frightening my cat in the midst of our frantic rendezvous. 

**_The only one for me,_** His words rotated in my head just as breathless as he heaved them. 

I couldn't think about much else before drifting off to sleep that night. I wasn't even sure I felt the same way. That's a white lie--I knew I didn't feel the same way. I was using him, as he'd been using me for three years. 

Midway through his marriage, he was bored, as he tells it. He wanted something new--but familiar, something different--but convenient. As it sounds like he was picking out the perfect furniture for his Manhattan penthouse, that wasn't the case. He was shopping the market for a worthy candidate to step out on his marriage with. Somehow, I fit that criteria. 

The odd thing was--Kate and I were the complete opposite. She had her shit together, and she made sure everyone that surrounded her knew so. Everything she wore bared the name of a dead designer; Dior, Chanel, McQueen. She'd be caught dead before she was caught behind trend. I'm sure she was giving Vogue advice at one point in her life. 

Then, there was me. I enjoyed fashion, when I could afford it but I had a heart for vintage pieces, Of course, Dior, Chanel and the late-but-great McQueen were my muses, but I was a sucker for Old Hollywood glamor. Everything was constructed based on the body, fashion was more personal then. Every shape, contour, or bust-line never went under appreciated. Everything was so subjective to style--to art, then. My work attire remained jeans and t-shirts--twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five. I would find ways to dress them up if I really wanted to, with pumps or wedges…when I felt like it. I had a pretty solid collection of sneakers and flats that were my go-to options.

I didn't know what he saw in me, other then the hunger for sex we both longed for. We were so opposite the spectrum, honestly, I had no clue. 

 

I awoke the next morning, feeling as if I slept double the time I really had. Feeling remarkably energetic after sleeping only six hours, I clearly remembered that I took my last two _Kaltrocipen_ before bed. _Kaltrocipen_ was the lesser known version of _Xanax._ The dosages varied similar to that of the other prescription but this was a little more effective. It was like _Xanax_ and _Valium_ had a one-night-stand and made _Kaltrocipen._ It calmed nerves and helped anxiety similar to _Xanax_ but it momentarily numbed the synapse as _Valium_ does. I've been on it for as long as I can remember. I was also illegally prescribing myself doses of _Aphymenal,_ to focus and concentrate on work. When I ran out of _Kaltrocipen,_ I self-medicated with a couple irregular doses of _Ambien,_ as a sedative, of course. Having been a part-time street pharmacist myself, I knew not to mix doses and exactly how much to take. I knew how much would get me high enough to function around people and still feel relatively good. I knew how high to get if I really needed a lift for a couple days. It comes with it's flaws, though. If you're not careful, you could miss a Wednesday, or an entire week.

I fed my orange and white cat, Theodore, before leaving with bag and leather motorcycle jacket intact. It was a sunny October morning. I let my hair flow naturally as I was much too tired to blow-dry it the night prior. Its soft waves blew through the chill in the breeze and flowed behind me. I switched it up that day and wore a mosaic pencil skirt with a casual v-neck, black stockings and a pair of leather booties. 

I was on my way to the pharmacy a few blocks from the complex. I decided to fill my prescription before work, in case I came into a calamity with Rachel that would cause my nerves to shut down completely. I was never able to think on my feet without my little helpers. They were my batteries.

I walked into the dead pharmacy to see them just opening. It had been a quarter-to-eight and I had to be to work by nine. I had a little time to spare. 

"Hi," I waved to the owner, Ollie. He went to high school with my mom and we shared the same birthday. He was thirty years-older than me but he was really nice. 

"Ms. Carlo," He greets me as he punches numbers in on his register. He was bald with these coke-bottle lenses that were so adorable. He only stood at 5'5", but he was the nicest man on earth. He never questioned my prescriptions of choice, he was just happy I came by to see him. Apparently, him and my mother were friends all the way up into their Junior year of high school. As he says, she helped a group of greasers destroy his extensive Science Project and they haven't spoken since then. "How are you this fine morning?"

"I'm well, Ollie," I dug for the prescription bottle and placed it on the counter. "Could you refill this for me?" There was a small copay I had to pay but it was worth my sanity.

"Sure can," He turned his back to me, fiddling with pill bottles in Ziploc bags. "Say, when are you going to start dating?" He would always do this, I knew exactly what was going to happen next--he was going to threaten me to go out with his thirty-five year-old bastard child of a son. His son, who still lived in the basement of his mother's and had a U2 tribute band. 

No thanks.

"I am, Ollie," I warranted. 

"You know, you're 24," He's still back there trying to find my prescription. I start to wonder as it has never taken this long to find it. "You're beautiful. A lot of more astute men fall for brunettes, like my son Miles," There he goes.

"No thank you, Ollie!" We both giggled. He returned to face me with a bag and questioning look. "What's up?"

"It says here, your prescription's been changed to _Saphalopan,_ " That was a prescription of a lesser dose than my original. That was candy, I wouldn't be able to get through half-a-day with that bullshit.

"What? Who changed it? I haven't talked to anyone," In fact, I did speak to someone, I just hadn't realized it yet.

"Uh--I have the referral here, one second," Ollie looked down at the label. "A fella with a funny name, _Cumberbatch._ " I crumpled the dollars in my hand, snatched the bottle from the counter and slapped the money onto the counter. I stormed out of there without a word.

_That rat bastard, know-it-all, piece of human excrement!_

I was going to get him back for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember guys, comments and Kudos are what keep this story alive! Thanks to everyone who has done that so far! I'm trying to update as much as I can without diluting the story but giving it more roundness. As I said, this chapter is more for the development of some new characters. If anyone has any suggestions on how I could make this any better, don't be afraid to lettabitchknow! hahaha  
> Just so you guys know, I literally made the names of the prescriptions up.


	4. Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW CONTENT!

Five days a week, I submerged my sanity into the calming hushed tones of passing footsteps and bottoms wiggling in the discomfort of office chairs. The barrage of manicured nails and heavy fingers connecting with the fragile keys and swift swipes of wireless mice; this was the background noise that orchestrated my mind wandering into odd places. All the while, the burning sensation in my corneas became second nature. I felt the rim of my eyelids moisten briefly realizing that I'd forgotten to blink.

Things were usually a blur by this time; after our absolutely aimless morning meetings and having to deflect eye-contact from Kate. Not-so coincidentally, our attire included identical skirts. Safe to say, I hid behind all of the audacious men that crowded around her just to see her breast rise and fall through her blouse with each word she spoke. They weren't even from our floor. I moved quickly enough to my desk before she chose me to make a spectacle out of our clashing wardrobes. She wasn't a mean girl, per say, she just knew her power. I think that's what made her immediately attractive, aside from her kept blond waves and well-nurtured roots. She wasn't power hungry, but she knew her position and she was aware of her influence.

Sitting prone to acquire a bothersome request at a desk that still hadn't been mine all-the-way. I'd open the drawers and find weird stuff like haikus and limericks from the person who used to work there. The most fortuitous thing to ever occur to me was when I found a literal mountain of fortunes ripped from the inside of complimentary cookies in the bottom-right drawer. I would draw one everyday after morning meetings and humor the daunted optimist within me. Unimaginably, none of those fortunes sparked any sudden optimistic quests, aside from the time it flawlessly predicted that Theodore would spit-up a massive hairball in my Giuseppe Zanotti's. This desk was my island most days. It was out of the way of immediate traffic of anyone coming off of the elevator. It was efficiently hidden in the middle of the office but toward the back. It was a complete cubicle of comfort for anyone who wanted to secure themselves from the constant scrutiny of their boss, especially if you were cuckolding their husband. 

_Especially._

That day had been a lot different, I was drifting away from my own thoughts. I would be thinking of a new layout idea, and suddenly I was thinking of how I would arrange my apartment for the holidays. It was too late until I realized I had spent a half-an-hour staring at a blue square centered perfectly on a white background. I was a bag in the wind, a snapped branch in the fervent rush of a waterfall; I wish I could compare my attention span to that of a fruit fly, but I didn't have one. I was certain that this had been caused by the medication waring off. I usually had taken it again after eating lunch to prevent my mind flaking out on me. I wasn't about to succumb to this new prescription. 

_Who did he think he was switching things up on me? I didn't come in his office and rearrange his elaborately placed furniture or jumble all of his books out of alphabetical order. It was an injustice!_

"Natasha," I mean, how does he just do that without my consent? I was boiling by the time I'd noticed my name being called. "Natasha, hello!" 

_Shit!_

Kate stood at the entrance of my cubicle annoyed that her presence hadn't been acknowledged. She wore a coral chiffon blouse with the skirt that matched mine. Instead of booties, she tiptoed in three-thousand-dollar nude Miu Miu's from this season. She always looked so effortlessly expensive. It was just her nature.

"Yeah," I looked to her with a faint smile and a melting confidence. I didn't give much concern to her seeing the skirt, to be honest. It was no contest. I could usually tell what she'd been thinking by her frank expressions, but I couldn't read her in that moment. A bubble of apprehension rose in the pit of my stomach and grew into a gurgle in the back of my throat.

_What if she knows?_

"Come see me in my office," Her aloof demeanor remained illegible and I knew I was in eminent danger. She would usually call us from our desks to come in her office and be intimidated out of our socks. In the two years I'd been employed there, she had never made a personal desk visit.

 _Maybe that's what happened to the last guy, I thought. Maybe he knew that in due time she was going to make a personal stop at his desk and fire him; he used the fortunes as a psychic used Tarot cards and the haikus as a peace offering. Maybe._ There had to be at least six years worth of fortunes in that one drawer. He had been hoarding them like a Y2K conspiracy theorist hoards two-ply. Maybe that desk was cursed.

"Natasha!" Fruition came over me that I had been staring at her this entire time trying to figure out my fate through history. My mouth lie agape and my eyes held a vacant glare.

"I'll be right there," The words sputtered out of my mouth. She raised an eyebrow, smiled and turned in those pumps. My breath caught in my throat, and in a last minute decision, I drew a fortune from the drawer breaking tradition.

 _ **'Your ability to trust fuels your ability to love,',**_ read the fortune. 

I was screwed.

Her heels clicked down the aisle without wary as her pointed toes led the way back to her office. 

"Why?" A faint sigh of agony left the depths of my lungs. Trying to suppress a small scream, I grab my bag from under the desk. My hand plunges in as my fingers fight off random pen caps, empty envelopes and crumbs, and grasps the pill bottle that I'd been trying to fight off all day. Knowing that it wouldn't induce for quite a while, it was a last ditch effort of mine. My jittery hands twisted the cap open, shook three pills out and within seconds, threw them to the back of my tongue. I kept a bottle of water at my desk for these instances, my timing was impeccable in that moment. With three coached breaths, my clammy palms slapped against the gray laminate and rose me to my greatest defeat with God-like strength. 

_Deny. Deny. Deny._ I creeped past a couple of my neighboring cubicles seeing that the office went on quite normally. Not a sigh or glance of despair followed me in my destination aside from my own. 

_This could be it,_ I reached her door in hopes she'd forgotten why she called me there in the first place. I thought of the call I would have to make to my mother, much to our dismay, I would have to move back in. Turning the door nob, I was already thinking of how long it would take to pack my cramped studio apartment. 

Another coached breath led me into her lair. Opening the large, wood-framed door, she hadn't noticed my presence. Half of that was due to her door not making sound on open. The building was ancient but her, being who she was, she probably had someone contracted to oil her hinges. The other-half was my deterred existence. 

"Close the door behind you, please," She clicked away at her iMac, giving me a side glance and then turning her attention back to her monitor. I twisted the nob completely shutting the door with a small click. I could feel my feet sweat stepping into her domain of imported furniture and neatly arranged roses among baby's breath. She had a curio as tall as the ceilings, filled with trophies and accomplishments; she was the walking-breathing-responsive definition of perfection. There wasn't anything that could be deemed dull in her office, everything shined as she did. That terrible feeling of disdain welcomed itself into my head again.

 _Why was he doing this to her,_ She turns to me with her head curiously tilted. 

" _You're_ in to Balmain?" With pen in hand, she points down at my skirt. I looked down and the thought leaves my mind momentarily.

"Oh--I got this as a gift," With a shaken voice, I intentionally leave out the whereabouts of the giver. To oust any other questions, I add, "My mom's big on fashion," With a shrug.

"Hmm," Her eyes graze over me with a questionable grin on her lips. "Scott brought me that back from Paris Fashion Week," I nod, trying to fight off a deafening scream growing in the pit of my stomach. With the mention of his name, I shrunk in remorse. She was almost smelling the lie hot off of my skin. "Anyways," She waves the intensity away without another scrutinizing look. "You're probably wondering why I called you in," Pushing herself away from her desk, uncrossing her long legs carefully and standing up. She stands at the side of her desk and nudges down a small framed picture mindlessly. "I've been looking through your portfolio for quite some time," She gestures to her monitor. "I have to tell you, Natasha--" _Uh oh, Here it comes,_ "I'm impressed with what I saw. Given, some of your pieces are a little dark, you have a great eye for composition," 

_This is happening,_ I shook myself out of a frozen dream state. It was really the medication kicking in. She's never given me feedback any more than a nod and half-smile. She had really been looking over my actual work. The thought of it embarrassed me, honestly. I went through a really dark period through my two years of college and a little after. I was drowning myself in my own pity at the hands of Morissey and Connor Oberst.

"Thank you," In this moment, my head began to float realizing I had been holding my breath until then. 

"Reason being," She continues with a different stance. Something inside of her contorted and began to change in the wake of us both. "I--" She sighs looking off. She was never the kind to stammer or hold back a thought, no matter how minor it was. She wasn't giving me eye-contact anymore, which I thought was rather odd. "I need someone to take my place temporarily." I stood frozen in front of her door. She gazed at me with furrowed brow and sincere eyes.

"What," I surprised myself recounting in confusion. "Kate, I don't know--"

"I know you're worried about your schooling but that will be taken care of--" My mind hadn't yet caught onto that, or else I wouldn't have anything left to say but 'When do I start?'

"Kate, I can't--"

"Look, this isn't up for debate right now," Her force rivaled my lack-there-of in a unanimous victory. I knew she meant that I was either to take it or leave. "This is just a temporary position until I'm ready to come back," I grew puzzled as to where she was going. 

"Where are you going?" In a moment where I was almost sure she was going to tell me that she was flying off on a sabbatical in the South of Spain, because she could. She looks to the framed pictures of modern art scribblings that meant freedom in some conservative eye. 

"I'm taking a personal leave," She still wasn't giving me the gist of why she'd been going on a leave. She wasn't the kind to take days off at a time. I didn't understand and none of this was connecting. "The company is willing to pay for your school as long as you can maintain a 3.6 GPA," I gulped. That was going to be a challenge if anything. I wasn't a terrible student, I was just distracted by everything temptation had to offer. I was dealing drugs, smoking gratuitous amounts of marijuana and partying until the cops came knocking on weekends and days before school. Briefly reminiscing to waking up in random dorms and having no idea how I got there.

Oh, the simpler times in life. 

"You are capable of that, aren't you?" She snapped me out of remembering how fun it was to search all over campus just to find my bra. 

"Yeah--um--" Before I could ask, she blurts an apparent truth.

"I'm getting a divorce," Without a question of whether or not I wanted to know, she let me have it. She wasn't as liberated as I thought she'd be, she didn't seem down-trodden either; she wasn't committing to sobbing and self-pity the way my mother did after husband #2. She didn't look like she was about to run his credit into a black abyss and destroy his black Audi A8 either. 

I wasn't sure how to feel. I was relatively content with her not wanting to hold onto Scott for all that he did for her materialistically. My thoughts were selfish in the face of her dismay. I was happy she was freeing herself of his infidelity but I didn't want him. He was merely a physical being to me. There was nothing I wanted from him, other than to have him a couple nights a week for the thrill. Now that he wasn't anyone else's, that thrill was sure to fade. 

"I--I'm really sorry," I was sorry. More so, I was elated she wasn't a jilted woman on the hunt for her husband's mistress. 

"Oh, there will always be another woman," I heard my mother quote that far too often. Her nonchalant response frightened me. "So," She cans the subject and recuperates her initial proposal. "You'll start next month…"

All the while, she sat with this unbothered, devil-may-care demeanor. It was only human of me to question the authenticity of it all. The skirt, the pumps, the breasts--it all seemed a show for everyone around to know that she was doing "okay". As apparent as it was that she knew nothing of the affair, it felt like she was guilt-tripping me subconsciously--only--not at all. 

_Was I a pawn?_ I couldn't help but to think they both were playing me for a fool. Although, knowing Kate for the time I've known her, she wasn't about tactical plans and low-brow schemes. She would have clawed my eyes out with her ornately manicured fingernails on sight. I've seen her come close to the debutant version of a bar brawl with a FedEx agent. 

I wouldn't say I felt pity for her, either. She had enough people around her to cushion her fall into divorcee purgatory as it was. Not to mention, the finances she was due to receive. She'd be absolutely fine. I did have some admiration for, and by some--I mean, a lot. Here was this woman, a modern-day siren, as I see it. A woman whose throne was positioned pristinely at the helm of the universe, having that very throne kicked from under her mercilessly by someone which of whom she trusted with everything. 

Taking myself out of the equation, just to place myself back in--I wouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning having been scorned by the man I changed my last name for. All of a sudden, I began to see Scott in a different light. Not that he was the best of the best men in New York City, but I did hold him on a pedestal to some degree. In a way, I had the bar stool kicked from under me, too. I wasn't married to him, of course not, but I was able to view him the way others--namely Dana--had. All of a sudden, I wanted nothing to do with him.

 

In light of the news, Kate let me go early as she didn't have anything left for me to do. She broke down all of the benefits and incentives the position offered. I was due for a pay increase, I would get a company phone, full benefits and paid time-off. There wasn't a definite date the temp position would end, but she informed me that it could extend to a permeant position within the company. My schooling expenses would all be submitted via the company's expenditure. She had given me a couple of catalogs for Art Colleges in the area with the notion to choose quick and wisely. It would only be a couple of night class I had to attend. My schedule was becoming an awkward mess. With "therapy" being the newest addition to it, I wasn't sure how to maintain the social life a I never had. 

After being released into the Brooklyn wild a little earlier than usual that day, I found myself in the elevator of my apartment building. Reluctantly watching the number spark to the sixth floor. Heaving the heaviest of sighs, I walked into the hall ready to meet my demise. The first person I wanted to tell was Dana and I was on my way to have the door slammed in my face. Butterflies swirled in the pit of my stomach, knocking me off of my axis a bit. Brief nausea came over me and then disappeared in the matter of seconds. Oh, the joys of having to get used to a new prescription. 

Reaching her door, I looked to the brass numbers as if they were going to tell me my fate. Dana was home early as she was off that day. I placed a soft apologetic knock on the door to let my intentions be known. I heard her Shih Tzu, appropriately named Han Solo (he had a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford), bark at the noise. Her footsteps were followed by an annoyed sigh and hush directed at the dog. I stepped back expecting her to look through the peephole and see that it was me.

"This better be Publisher's Clearing House," She warranted. I sighed a small laugh as the locks came undone and the door swung open with a breeze. I snickered at the sight of her hair covered in flacks of foil and notably turning blue. "Shut up,"

"What? It's a good look for you!" I tried to lighten the mood as her bothered expression turned into a faint smile.

"Are you coming in or what? Hurry before Brian the Bod sees me like this!" She all-but dragged me in and slammed the door behind me. _"Brian the Bod"_ was the tenant who lived across the hall from her. He was single with enough tattoos and piercings for about six people, but had the hygienic habits of a Park Ape. 

"I'm sure you'd be able to smell him from the lobby," I cackled. She was the least pleased of the two of us and Han Solo. She rolled her eyes and took priority to her bathroom mirror.

"So you're here, why?" She wasn't much of a timid nature.

"I have news," Her fingers unraveled in her hair and slapped onto the sink as I stood in the doorway.

"News? Oh my God! You're not pregnant, are you?" Her green eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"No! And why is that the first thing to come to your mind when I tell you I have news?"

"C'mon, Tash. An asshole like Scott won't waste time with something as practical as a contraceptive," She was so right. Not that I'd ever admit it to her but her words were factual.

"Well, I'm not pregnant, thank you," She shrugged. I sighed, knowing that she was going to gripe and groan for Kate and her world in shambles. She had every right to, I just wish she would see things through my rose-colored goggles…or however that saying goes. 

I broke the news lightly, beginning with the promotion. She grabbed me into a warm hug, pulled back and instantly knew I had more to say. With a preemptive approach, I offered to wash the dye out of her hair. This way, I didn't have to dodge the angered looks and the eye contact of a woman once scorned by a touring lead vocalist of a New Jersey garage band. She did gasp a few times and I took it all in stride. She had every right to. She even "accidentally" flung shampoo in the direction of my face…accidentally.

I wrapped a towel around her hair dripping sapphire. We sat on her couch with daytime talk shows as background noise.

"So you're going to end it with him? No more casual sex, no more traveling," She droned on, "No more expensive wardrobes? How do you think he'll react? He ended his marriage, Natasha," Her words sat with me for a while. 

Scott became the fading image of the famed musician an adolescent girl once idolizes; that image of an individual so surreal, it's hard to believe they exist in the same world as you, that they breathe the same air you do. You worship them until they become someone you didn't expect. Out of the blue, out of nowhere, they hit you with who they really are and who they are isn't as pretty as you imagined. Who they are isn't as polished, their minds are just as polluted as yours and they will never be satisfied with ordinary. You can idealize someone for so long until they become just that--an idea.

"That's it, I mean, there's nothing I want from him anymore," I saw hope at the crinkle of her smile.

"That's right," She pulls me into her shoulder with a comforting gesture. I lie my head on shoulder as her arms wrap around me. "You're doing the right thing and I support you all of the way." Her tone softens.

"Thanks, Dana," I return the hug sincerely. My phone vibrates briefly.

"Uh oh," Dana giggles as she gets up to dry her hair. Before I could look down at the phone, I knew it was him just out of irony. I pulled it out of my pocket to see that the light was blinking blue, so it was a text message. To my surprise, it wasn't Scott. I was actually quite pleased to see this person's number grace the screen of my phone. It was my British bar-and-therapy-mate (not in that order). "What's he saying?" Dana yells from the bathroom over to loud mechanical scream of her hairdryer. 

"It's not Scott, it's James." I heard the dryer stop.

"Oh my! What could he possibly want?" She mocked with an alluring tone. It was somewhat of a long message. I guess he wasn't going to wait for me to respond to a simple 'Hey' or 'Hi', or any greeting that he might use around his best mates. Reading his text full of lazy grammatical infractions, I could help but to hear his heavy English roots:

  
 **Natasha! its James from the pub** (Also from therapy, but okay.)  
 **i had a gr8 time chatting u up last nite**  
 **wanted 2 no if u r free friday @ 8 for karaoke** (This was followed by a pill, needle and confetti emoji. My skepticism quickly set in.)  
 **its a party so bring ur barmaid friend**  
 **dont bring a bloke** (I quickly assumed this meant male companion. Not by context but by the eggplant emoji that followed in threes.)  
 **txt me & let me no**  
(A string of celebratory emojis followed and ended the text.)  


"Let me read it!" Dana snatches the phone away from my grasp and reads it silently as if it needed a once-over glance. "Oh my God! We're going!" She throws the phone down as if it were to self-destruct at any moment. 

"I don't know, Dana," Her bewildered expression sought out to strangle me if looks could kill.

"He literally invited the two of us and descriptively instructed you not to bring anyone with a penis. We're going and that's final!" I didn't see the point in not going, I just wasn't sure how I would feel that day, especially being on a new prescription and dosage. 

I briefly wondered if he would invite Ben. The thought creeped into my mind as a teenager would sneak into her window from a late night as her parents slept soundly. I had this wild curiosity of how he reacted in social gatherings and "parties". It was hard for me to imagine him at a bar, but the laughable thought of him doing karaoke is what further halted my thought process. 

"Fine, we'll go," I sighed feigning exhaustion. "On one condition," I declared. She turned as I sparked her curiosity.

"And that would be?" She turns to glare at me.

"We absolutely have to do a Wilson-Phillips duet! We have to!" 

"Oh, of course!" She brings me in for another warm embrace.

**Hey, James!**  
 **I Had a great time too!**  
 **Thanks for the invite, we'll be there with our best performances in tow!**  
 **Text me the location when you get a chance!**  
 **-XXXo Natasha**  


Before sending it, I read it over approximately thirteen times. I was well aware he wanted to be more than just a "pub mate" by him not wanting to bring any company of the opposite sex to attend. Lest I forget, he was nearly mauled by a grizzly of a man for insulting me. I just wasn't sure of what my intentions were with him. He was easy-going, seemingly intelligent, attractive and British--everything I looked for in a "bloke", with the bonus of him being from across-the-pond. I didn't know if I was as interested in him as much as he was interested in me. It made me even more skeptical of attending, but I was already bound by verbal contract with Dana.

I deleted my ode-to-M.I.A. signature and ended with,

  
 **-Tash** (:  


 _Much friendlier,_ I thought. I hit send and without delay, he messaged me the location of the bar and the reservation name, ending his message with,

  
**excited 2 c u again**   
**dont hesitate to txt reg.**   
**i like hearing from u (Winking emoji)**   
**-James (:**   


Ben must cringe in his Diesel jeans and dry-cleaned button-downs when James texts him. Either that, or he mechanically fixes the grammatical errors as he reads them, like a robot would.

 

"Are you finished," I looked to Ben's perplexed gaze as he holds a wad of paper towels in his hands, protecting himself from the onslaught of regurgitated apple sauce. My stomach lurched again and my throat clenched. I held my hair back away from my face as I purged again. "I'm guessing you're not," He quietly contemplates when the end of it will be.

I couldn't have been more mortified. I was vomiting all of my contents from all-I-could-eat soft foods from the night prior, into his trash can that never held anything but paper. If to make it worse, I was automatically sobbing softly in embarrassment. It was all a terrible dream; a continuation of the terrible nightmares I'd been having all night. They'd become so lucid it was absolutely horrific. I ended up sleeping for an entirety of fourteen hours teamed with visions of myself running from something I couldn't see. I couldn't see who or what it was, but I knew something was there. I could literally feel it. On top of that, I woke up around noon--the exact time I had an appointment with Ben. The very person who switched me to the prescription in which I was experiencing the short-term side effects. Good Ole Ben.

"I'm really--" I took a deep breath with my eyes still clenched closed. "I'm really sorry," I coughed for what seemed like a good twenty minutes and then he came over with the paper towels.

"Don't be sorry. I meant to tell you of the side effects of the Saphalopan before I changed up your prescription," He sounded as apologetic as intended but, of course I had to bite back.

"What you forgot to mention was you changing my prescription," I wiped my mouth and threw the towel in the trash can, placing the trash can at the door.

"You and I both know--" He spoke as if he was stopped by a presence other than the two of us in the room. "The makers of Kaltrocipen are currently under fire for an illegal additive within the medicine. It was recalled six weeks ago. I very strongly doubt you want me to guess how you obtained your dosage," His dialect became cringe-worthy and the sunlight shining on his dark auburn hair glared me in the eyes and made my head throb. He goes to his desk where, apparently, there is a built-in mini fridge. 

"Your guess is as good as mine," I quipped. He pulls out a cold bottle of water and an cloth. He goes over to the trashcan and pours the water, dampening to cloth and wringing it out over the trashcan. He was brave to even go over there but he dared to defile his Premium Mohawk carpet with a water stain. I could imagine him hissing at the thought.

"Lie back," He knelt down in front of me and instructed me to lie back on the lounge. I felt awkward at first, and then, I felt especially awkward when he stared at me with a peculiar look. But Ben being who he was, I'll never know what it meant. "Here's a mint. It'll settle the nausea and help your breath," He giggles lightly. His mouth twitches realizing I wasn't in the joshing-around mood. What was nice was that I was in full view of his eyes. I wondered if they were always that calming. Blue, green and gold splashed around his irises in an unbelievable pattern. Much to my dismay, he got off of his knee to draw his blinds down. He returned to me with my feet up on his lounge and my hands folded on my stomach. 

"It'll take some time getting accustomed to. The nausea, dizziness and migraines usually range from three-to-five weeks on average," He places the damp cloth on my forehead by stretching half of his body over me. I was hesitant to breathe through my nose as normal scents now sent me leaning over a toilet, or in this case, a trashcan. As he reached over me, I opened my nostrils to his neroli and rose scent. I didn't smile as I never want to admit that I enjoyed that scent, but I hadn't felt sick by it. "I have to say, I'm rather proud of you resisting your stubborn urge to not take it at all," He declared in an appreciative tone. Little knowing, that I had refused to take it and was pushed by nothing other than sporadic anxiety and an oncoming panic attack. I didn't have a clever retort to send his way, I felt like absolute shit and I'm pretty sure I got vomit in my hair. I just sucked on the peppermint and and watched his lips move. My hand falls to my side onto the lounge.

"Thanks," That was all I had. I really wanted to ask him if he did all this for James when he was ailing. 

"You can lie here for as long as you need to," His hand rests next to mine. His fingers are long but very delicately taken care of. "When you get home, relax. Run yourself a bath if you have to. Let all that worries you evaporate into steam. Soak until you feel every muscle in your body unwind. Sleep," His palms caress my forearm reassuringly. "You have to sleep. As hard as it may seem, you must." Goosebumps have never taken longer to form. His hands were warm and soft, much like his eyes, except they didn't glow.

 

On the way home, I hadn't experienced anymore violent bouts of vomiting. I had a headache that was almost blinding and the dizziness got real old--real quick. I was already over this medication and I had three or five weeks to get my body acclimated to it properly. 

I took all of the breathy, verging-on sensual advice that Ben had to offer and did exactly what he told me. I even put on some Bon Iver to try and drift me off to a depression induced slumber. Needless to say, it just wasn't happening. 

I lied there for a couple of hours, too proud to admit that I was frightened to drift off to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about the nightmare I might have. It was to the point where I had came up with my own scenarios of nightmares chock full of everything that scared me; spiders, demons, zombies, commitment-- _everything._ I did all of this just to try and surpass the horror of any of the continuous nightmares I was bound to have. It worked for around ten minutes. I was brought back to my dark room when Theodore's outstretched paw contracted its nails and punctured my shoulder. I sat up with a jolt, annoyed and defeated. 

Theodore didn't budge.

Desperately trying to reach some kind of a dream state, I listened to the sounds of Brooklyn hustle under my open window. The breeze that night was definitely autumnal but pleasant. The right breeze blew in through my sheer curtains. I pulled my duvet over the entirety of my body. With a frustrated sigh, I closed my eyes and lead mind somewhere a nightmare was sure not to find me. It was dark, but it was darkness in solitude. I let everything in my mind go to disintegrate in thin air. I lied with my eyes shut in complete darkness, on something cozy. My shoulders were rolled back and my muscles became flaccid. 

A familiar scent filled the air as another breeze blew through the curtains and I was officially under. 

**_  
"Just sleep," I felt that whisper reverberate through my spine._ **

**_Darkness._ **

**_I tried to pry my eyes open, to no avail, did that happen. I wasn't alone anymore._ **

**_"Drift off for me," A familiar touch caresses my forearm and moves across my stomach. I gasp._ **

**_My panic falls on deaf ears._ **

**_"Sleep for me," The whisper grows a little louder into a hiss. The touch plunges its way past my waistline. Cupping me like a coveted prize. My knees rise in want in a mechanical way. The warmth collapsed me within myself and I let out another gasp._ **

**_"Fall for me," Fingers laced themselves in places that were deep. Shivers were sent down my being in a frenzy. I could no longer breath as they moved strategically. The sensation was all I could feel. It was a fuzzy haze, a speaker so loud it was mute. I let out a cry._ **

**_"Inhale," I did as the voice instructed. Fingers worked within me, sending me spiraling further down. My cries turned into heaving breaths and moans. They circled sensitive tissues and nerves, I was on the edge._ **

**_"Now," The pace continued in circles. Friction activated a familiar warmth inside of me, sending me to an endless oblivion._ **

**_"Exhale," My body shook and tightened again._ **

**_I was falling._ **

**_All of the muscles contracted and loosened, contracted and loosened. There was static and friction, and that fuzzy haze. It was as if I could feel white noise through every orifice of my being. I let out my final cry, reaching an uncontainable euphoria._ **

**_I opened my eyes and smiled._ **

**_Blue._**  
 **Green.**  
 **Gold.**  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who is still reading this story. I have been crazy busy with everything and I couldn't find enough time to appropriately sit and write the 4th chapter to this series. I hope you guys enjoyed the come this chapter.  
> Comments & Kudos, please. They're nice.  
> Special thanks to: Somethingtreeish. She da bomb dot com. She's a superb writer and she's so awesome!!
> 
> Also:  
> OakenshieldsStar9  
> Lu_isa08


	5. The Body Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW Content. Reader's discretion is advised.

I showered with all intentions of washing away the thoughts that sent my toes curling and breath heaving at the hands of my own. I shivered at the thought of being some victim of an odd Freudian experiment. I wasn’t ashamed, I was much too far divulged in sexual experimentation than to be hesitant about self-pleasure. On a grander scale, I wasn’t disgusted, just awestricken at the very least. Considering, a lot of what I practiced recreationally was to no comparison as normal or as welcomed as this. 

With a delayed sigh of fulfillment, I smiled against stream of water ironing my conscience and calming my shaking muscles. Without shedding light on the material I chose to fill my template with in order to reach a roaring climax that was sure to send me into plushy slumber, I stood in the surge of steam and water coveting every inch of this physical being I was blessed with. I could feel myself illuminate under my very own fingertips. My touch was electric.

 

I slept better that night than I’ve slept in a while. The dreams remained vague and I couldn’t recall being awaken from a terror. Much like I dreamt, that day flew by in an obscure nebulous of computer keys and whispers. Being too delighted by the feeling my new prescription had served me, I knew better than to indulge myself in any office gossip. 

Kate gave me a few applications to some colleges in the area that had a strong curriculum in the major I was studying. She was sure to inform me that if I had gotten into one, that it should be the School of Visual Arts. It sounded arbitrary at first, but she insured me that it was one of the best art schools on the east coast. Finishing our encounter with “…What good is it if it’s not the best, right?” I nodded and pretended I was as excited as she was. 

When I got home, I talked to James for a good hour. I was really enjoying whatever we had going on. Our conversations were very in depth. He saw a lot of the world the way I did. Although, he was living on a greater range than a lot of the early-twenty-something-New-York-City slags that I usually surrounded myself with. He whimsically described his travel to three continents, his life before “his mate Ben” and the addiction that costed him almost everything. His life summed up to be very peripatetic and that didn’t help much. He lived so much more than I did, but he wanted a lot of the similar things I longed for. All we wanted was to live without the constant refill of medication reminding us that our longevity was often oval shaped and lived in an orange bottle. He also let me in on the intentions of his karaoke soiree the night following. It was going to be the two-year celebration of him being completely clean of prescription and recreational drugs.

Hearing him enthuse about his recovery triumphs, dimmed a tainted bulb inside of me. We wanted a lot of the same values in our lives, but I wasn’t being completely honest when I told him I wanted it all gone. I still dabbled in the dark alleyways of powders and inhalants to get me to a higher ground. I wasn’t about to broadcast all of my dirty laundry but I did let him know that I had somewhat of a problem…

_Somewhat of a problem…_

The mood lightened a little and he told me the sound of my voice soothed him. It was an honest account that made me giggle and blush in the most prepubescent way. With a rosy cheeked smile, I told him his inflection was infectious. It was corny but to hear his laugh was everything I needed. Before bidding a sweet farewell, he told me he couldn’t wait to see me the following night. After giggling like idiots for a good two minutes more, we bid each other a casual “…See you around,” which sounded more authentic than I thought coming out of his mouth. Being who I was, I let him know that. Suddenly, his accent became thicker and his consonants dropped. He roared an offended “Well then, cheerio,” through the phone which sent a rivalry of unstoppable giggles through my chest. 

After spending another ten minutes smiling, giggling, blushing—repeat; I fed Theodore a treat for not catching a mouse and doing away with it around my apartment and succumbed to an uninterrupted sleep.

 

“Oh,” Dana stood in the arch of my bedroom doorway and surveyed me with sultry eyes. “You’re definitely giving me _Punk-goes-BDSM_ in that skirt and those boots,” Her loud giggle lifts the ceilings of my cramped studio. She enters the room fully and and places a firm slap on my rear end. I was self-consciously admiring myself in a tight leather midi-skirt, a loose Ramones crop top and a pair of merlot chunky-heel combat boots. 

“Do you think it’s too much for a pub, honestly?” I whined, Dana’s sanity couldn’t withstand another wardrobe change as this had been my sixth and supposed final decision.

“You look great, Tash!” She tousled her mid length curls that faded from light to dark blue. “You’re using his British tongue now, huh?” I inwardly blush and turn away from her fixing my eyeliner and shaking my head. She poses her most Vogue-ready editorial pose yet. Giving the mirror a seductive Cara Delevigne pout in a long-sleeve black, red and royal blue aztec patterned dress, complete with cut-outs on the torso. It was a gift that Scott had gotten me and something I really had no intentions of ever wearing. I was in the process of giving all of his consolation prizes to Good Will, when Dana had so conveniently knocked on my door and took all of what he gave me off of my hands. We both agreed that it was a form of therapy. “We look like we came to fuck shit up,” She casually says, holding me around the waist. I threw my wild hair into neat pony tail. 

“Precisely,” Out of pure conceit, I turn around and examine the curve protruding from my back carefully. Tight leather skirts were _so_ my thing.

“What time is it?” Dana dug into the clutch that was also an attribute to the wardrobe I’d donated to her. It was a maker of some French name I was sure to have forgotten. 

“It’s ten-of-eight,” She grabs her vintage leather jacket with an asymmetrical zipper and tosses her hair to the side. 

“We’re officially fashionably late,” I dawn a similar jacket with stud shapes pressed into the leather lapel. 

 

The train ride over to the bar was uneventful. I couldn’t stop thinking of James and how he would see me in this skirt. I couldn’t wait to see his eyes light up again. It was a few days since I last seen him but we spoke regularly now that we were more established with each other. Every now and then, the question of Ben being there pulled at me from somewhere deep. I was a little less effected by it than I should have been. He was only present on my mind when I was vomiting from the meds which was less often now. The day prior after work, I could have sworn a glimpse of the back of his barbered head in the Whole Foods. To no avail, it wasn’t him. I was just curious of how he did normal-people things in social settings. He was so otherworldly it was unnerving. If he told me his past time was reenacting WWI in Central Park, I would be the least surprised. Moreover, him and James were so different from each other, yet they were very close. I hadn’t wanted to pry, or seemed like there would be an issue with Ben’s attendance so I never brought it up with James.

 

With our arms linked together, Dana and I shivered our merry way to Sing Sing Karaoke. Not to be mistaken for the maximum security prison. It was still in Brooklyn and a good ten minute train ride from where we lived. On our way, there were a couple of groups of “bros” around our age and younger, whistling our way. We rolled our eyes and kept up the pace. I had forgotten what Brooklyn was like on a Friday night. It had been so long since I had been out, I literally abandoned the memory of all of the assholes that were lurking around most sidewalks. The constant hoots and catcalling that used to give me a boost, now bothered me to no end. Honestly, I didn’t miss it. 

Not a minute later, we were met with a hot neon sign of the karaoke bar. Delighted by the thought of warmth and seats to rest our wary feet, I pulled the door open to be met with a hostess. I shook the chill off as she greeted us with a calm smile and clipboard.

“Do you have a reservation?” She shouted over someone wailing _‘Head Over Heels’_ by Tears for Fears over the speakers. She seemed like she enjoyed her job laughing at former reality TV singing competition hopefuls; belting ballads and forgetting the words to _‘Baby Got Back’._

“Yes, the party’s under McAvoy,” I leaned in closer to her ear for her to hear me. With a painful smile caused by the person finishing the song in an awful soprano. She pointed in the direction in which we needed to follow.

“Upstairs to your left, ladies! Have fun!” Fun was definitely to be had. Upon going past the hostess desk, we were met with a wine colored staircase that winded to a balcony that overlooked the rest of the club. It was dim but not dark enough to not see what was in front of us. Dana sped ahead of me up the stairs awaiting hot Englishmen that were sure to fawn all over the both of us—at least this is how she seen it happening. At the top of the stairs stood a long couch aligning the curve of the wall, a small bar and a wide stage. On the stage stood a microphone and a monitor like a teleprompter to read the lyrics off of. It was a spacious area indeed that fit at least twelve people in James’ party. 

We looked around not recognizing anyone at first and then there were two heads at the bar I’d recognize anywhere. I wasn’t sure if I should wait until he turned around or to go behind him and tap his shoulder. Before I could turn around and point all of this out to Dana, she was whisked away by tattoos and a platinum mop. 

“What the fuck,” I grumbled low enough for no one to hear me. Our plan was to stick together and stay that way until the both of us were adjusted enough to our environment. Dana looked back at me from the dream that stood in front of her and seen the frustration prevalent on my face.

“Tash,” She struts over to me with her jacket in hand as she was comfortable enough to have taken it off. Meanwhile, I am a celery stalk in Siberia somewhere, petrified. “This is Jesse! We went to high school together,” He smiled and shook my hand. He was tattooed from his shoulders all the way down to his fingertips and that was no exaggeration. He had nice smile and his hair was cool too. He had this rockabilly style that I know Dana fell hard for but he smelled much nicer than Brian The Bod. 

“I’m Natasha. It’s nice meeting you,” As his smile lingered, I could feel a familiar set of eyes on the back of my head. 

“Likewise, I’m Jesse! How do you know James?” I wasn’t about to go into detail of how and why James, Ben and I were connected.

“Long story,” I flagged him off with a smile and he didn’t persist. Dana was now clinging to his side with a dreamy smile of complacency. I knew then that I wasn’t going to be riding the train back home with her. At least one of us was in our comfort zone. 

“Enough said,” He was an American like the two of us which made me curious as to how James knew him. 

“Natasha,” The infectious inflection I could listen to repeat my name over, and over…I turned around and smiled trying not to look too excited. 

“James!” He pulled me into a hug now that we were the same height. He smelled like happiness and Jim Beam. Unknowingly, I sighed into his shoulder welcoming his scent into my lungs. He withdrew me from his embrace and I saw exactly what I wanted to see: his eyes were shining the way I imagined they would.

“You look…” I bit my lip and I waited until his eyes left mine to look down at my legs or around my waist to my rear, but they never did. He pulled me in once more. His lips softly grazed my earlobe. “You look amazing,” He breathed and held me there for a little longer. I couldn’t remember what song played while we were stuck in that moment but it was irrelevant because he was holding me for what seemed like the best eternity. I felt his stubble against my cheeks making me want in all the right places. He took a step back again and this time his eyes read something different. They still shined but with a conviction that was barely readable. 

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” I couldn’t stop being corny to save my life. He wore a tartan flannel rolled up to his elbows, that went great along with his budding beard and medium washed denim. 

“Nothing compared to you, not even a close second,” I could feel the curious stares and the begging questions they would have for James once I returned him to his company. “Let me take your coat,”

“Oh, sure,” I almost forgot I had it on. He held my purse like a dutiful gentleman as I slipped my arms out of the sleeves. He hands it to a person I haven’t been introduced to yet. “Thank you,”

“What can I get you to drink?” He turns back to the bar with his arm hanging around my waist naturally. We walk a couple steps to the bar and he sits me on the stool he’d been sitting at.

“She’ll have an Aperol Spritz,” That recognizable timbre stiffened my spine. I couldn’t show him that I was made nervous by his presence. I was ready to play along.

“What’s in that, exactly?” I turned to face him and felt something very heavy cease the productivity of my lungs. His hair was effortlessly pushed back in the most perfect way to put those eyes on view for the entire world to see. He wore a gray Pink Floyd tee and a pair of tailored burgundy slacks, with a rusted flat boot that met his ankles. He looked a part of the circus around him. I always thought he would stand out so easily and I was so wrong. He seemed naturally relaxed at the bar around loud singing and slurred salutations. It was a sight to be seen, really. I was more perplexed to see that he didn’t have some unattainably attractive lady-friend/eye candy on the other side of the bar. A woman who I imagined would carefully place his curls back in place if they ever were to fall, apply dusting powder when his cheeks and the bridge of his nose began to shine, and flatten the wrinkles on his short sleeves when his biceps unintentionally flexed. 

“It’s an Italian drink,” James butt-in just in time. “Ben here, thinks he can get any girl to hand over her knickers by telling them about his holiday in Venice,” James cackled and Ben snorted a light laugh. 

“It was worth a try,” They both chuckle and Ben takes a swig of whatever was in his glass. I presumed it was whiskey he’d been drinking. It was a brown liquor that had a few ice cubes in it. He definitely seemed like a whiskey man. All the while, James’ arm never falls from my waist. He orders me a dry martini and finally takes a seat next to me.

“Have you done karaoke before?” James takes a sip of the straight vodka that was freshly refilled by the overly friendly bartender that was helping herself to both men. 

“Yeah, back in college I was a bit of a crooner,” It was like every word I spoke made him smile. Where had this man been all of my life?

“Oh yeah? Well, I clearly remember you saying how much you used to love Bright Eyes,” It was a conversation we had at the bar when he told me he wanted to form a band after high school. Connor Oberst was one of my favorite people who ever walked the earth. I told James all about the time I almost met him and was willing to nearly get hit by his tour bus for it to happen. Some wild days, those were. “I might have a surprise for you later,” 

The bartender, just waiting for Ben to order another drink so she can keep his accent in her head a buried treasure. When he wasn’t keeping an eye on the college football game, he kept giving her this empty loathsome stare that made her break a martini glass. She was a wounded mouse in the gaze of a jaguar; running from wall to wall in a panicked frenzy while the wild feline just wagged his tail and waited for the right time to strike. I felt her pain.

“Ah, I enjoy a good surprise,” Hopefully one that didn’t include me being hit by a tour bus. The memory sent an all-too-familiar sting through my body. 

“I’m going to make a trip to the loo, I’ll be back in a few,” His hand leaves my forearm and leaves the warm spot to turn cold. He gets up from the stool and walks away from the bar. I tried to hold onto his scent, but that follows behind him too. I took a sip of my martini and frowned. I pushed the glass away but before I could occupy the bartender, Ben caught her attention.

“A dry martini, please, and this time—easy on the vermouth,” Without a single word, she nods and tries to concentrate on her shaking hands around the bottles and the measurements in which she is to follow. In some sort of way, I was relieved that I wasn’t the only person who reacted to him in that way. Apart from his looks and his stature, he was an intimidating person even when he wasn’t trying to be.

She finishes the drink, places it at the bar in front of him. Before she could ask, he mouths “My tab, thank you,” and pushes the drink in front of me. Was this legal? I was his patient, isn’t looked down upon to buy your patients drinks? 

“I’m not sure if I can accept this,” I slowly push the glass his way.

“I’m not on the clock and you’re not on my lounge vomiting in my trash bin, are you?” He says with humor prevalent in his tone. His mouth curls in the most sinister way, resembling the animated smirk of the Grinch.

“I guess I’m not,” I take a sip again, this time satisfied with my drink.

“Better?” His humbling smile set me at ease.

“Much better,” I take another drink and I am two-thirds through it. “Thank you,”

“It’s no sweat, really. I meant to tell you how—“ He cuts himself short and rearranges his words. “You look very nice tonight,” I could almost feel my conscious slip away for a cigarette outside. I couldn’t let him see that, though. _Regroup, Natasha._

“Thank you. You Brits clean up quite nicely,” I winked playfully his way.

“I wish I could tell you that I tried but, truth be told I roll out of bed like this,” Upon that remark, I mentally slapped myself as my mind wandered south. I faked a disgusted sigh as a soft chuckle rolled through his throat. “I meant to congratulate you on your promotion,” His tone of voice changed and I realized we were having actual dialogue and I wasn’t a frozen Lima bean in his deadpan gaze.

“I appreciate it, but it’s only temporary,” I figured that James let him know as we talked about that earlier too.

“It’s better than nothing, right? I hear you’re going back to get your BFA?”

“Yeah, I have yet to be accepted by a college in the city, though,” With the circumstances surrounding the promotion, it was becoming more and more exhausting to talk about. Before he could continue, I changed the subject. “I think the bartender has a crush on a certain therapist,” I sang tauntingly. He shook his head wildly in refusal.

“Track marks,”

“What?”

“On her left arm,” He hissed.

“And you wouldn’t be able to look passed that?”

“Everyone has a type, Natasha,” 

“Everyone has a past, _Benedict,_ ” He halted further arguments with a stunned look from me asserting his surname against him. I could see the perfect resurgence forming in his mind through the windows that were his eyes. Instead of going round-for-round in a sass-off, he continued with his cool smirk and turned fully to the stage. 

_He wins._

“Your boyfriend’s on stage,” I stared at him in disbelief briefly as I watched him take another drink. His eyes darted from mine and then away to the stage.

“He’s not—“ I turned to see James in the red and blues of the best rock lights the club had to offer. He held a microphone in his hand with his unbeatable smile. Upon being in the literal spotlight, the party hushed down and the music that idly play on the jukebox turned off all at once. 

“I— _uh_ —I guess I’ll start with thanking everyone who came out to support me tonight. I couldn’t have made it two years without the lot of you. Some old friends are here, some new,” He turns to me and my heart palpitates out of my chest. “Jesse flew in from sunny Los Angeles, California to be here to support me in person,” Jesse, whose arm was was slung around Dana’s shoulders as they shared a passionate kiss. He momentarily broke free from the lip lock and saluted James with his fist in the air. “Look how good of a time you’re having,” He narrows his sights on the inebriated twosome. “Snogging a girl you met—what—fifteen minutes ago? Bless him,” Dana was too enamored to break her bubbly silence and correct him. Instead, she grabbed Jesse by the face and they went at each other with open mouths and wild tongues.

“There’s one person in particular tonight that I couldn’t have gotten through this without. I wouldn’t have been alive, on this stage tonight if it weren’t for the best mate a prick like me, could ask for,” He gave a nervous laugh that further authenticated the sincerity pouring out of his open wounds. “You’ve seen me through the worst times in my life,” He looks through me, to Ben who sat somberly with a humbling demeanor. “Honestly, I wish I could—somehow reciprocate all of the love and admiration you’ve shown me over the past six years—“ I sat there with no idea of the lineage of their friendship. “—All of the resilience and discipline you’ve taught me that will forever push me in the right direction. In fact—“ He enthuses, “—tonight I’m going to repay you by getting you laid,” Before turning to him and seeing his face grow purple with embarrassment, I palmed my face to mask the uncontrollable laughter my body tried to fight back. Recovering with only a few tears on my lashes, I turned to Ben with a careless grin plastered across his whiskey tainted lips.

“Jokes aside, you are the most passionate person I know. You’ve a heart bigger than most and that is what makes you the best at what you do—even if you do have a ridiculous name. You’re a real class act, Ben. Thank you.” The crowd grew from twelve to thirty during his obligatory recovery spiel. Everyone applauded and followed James in raising his glass of 151. He stood in the direction of the bar and soberly scanned the room. “To friends—old and new—and the issues that make us who we are.” He winks in Ben’s direction.

 _“To issues!”_ The crowd muses, raising our glasses once more, we all take a toast to everything that makes us who we are.

_**To issues…** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY LATESGIVING!
> 
> This chapter was slightly dismal and short, I know, but I will be updated with the second part to this chapter later tonight! Thank you to all of my Bookmarkers, all of the guests and AO^3 users who give me Kudos with every update! I can't begin to elaborate how much I appreciate seeing it pop up in my email!


	6. God & Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shining like a fiery beacon.

The party settled a little while after James became Ben’s dating service; announcing to the crowd that he was an eligible bachelor of thirty-six, that he drives a Jaguar and makes over $70K annually. Women howled in his direction throwing up bids and _‘call me’_ hand gestures his way. Ben politely waved them off but playfully pointed a few of them out with a comical wink. 

“I can’t leave this stage without crooning a note or two myself. It is my party, after all,” He anxiously shuffles the microphone cord around with his beaten up Chuck Taylor's, kicking around the thoughts that played on his smile. “I was originally going to do Bowie but there’s someone here tonight that I have something extra special for,” His body winds my way again and I am red in the face. 

He outstretches his arm and signals me over. The party begins to cheer again, even before I leave the stool. Ben behind me, shouts an obnoxious _‘YEAH!’_ with a smirk that I’d like to knock off of his lips with the back of my hand.

I wander over to the side of the stage and the _‘ooh’s_ from the crowd follows me. Without a word, he points down at the space directly in front of the stage. He beacons me to that very position as the shrill keys of _‘Lover I Don’t Have to Love’_ begins, my face is hot and my hands are shaking. In all of this, I can’t keep my eyes off of him. All of the anxiety I felt wasn’t considered an adversary in his gaze. I felt powerless and secure all in the same moment. It was something that I would often like to describe as wondrous.

After jumping off of the stage and garnering the praise of his peers, James was at my side again. It slipped my mind briefly that there were other people in that space. It hadn’t mattered much, anyway.

He pulls me into him and places a soft kiss on my forehead. 

“You know, this isn’t a frequent thing I enjoy doing for girls who almost cost me my life in a scuffle,” He was sort of sweaty, but I didn’t mind it. The way he was secure within himself and his feelings, the people he wanted to be around—his confidence in everything he did made him that much-more attractive. 

“I wouldn’t advise it,” It was that point in the night, he didn’t have to pull me closer or hold onto me. I was melting to coexist within his presence. 

As he introduced me to his countless _'mates’, ‘lads’, ‘buds’_ and comrades alike, most of their names I forgot upon being told. I was stood at ease. I laughed and joined in on the exchanges as much as I could. Flight after flight of shots and complimentary drinks being sent my way, it wasn’t too long before I was wincing at the urgency I had to relieve myself. 

I grabbed Dana’s undivided attention by snapping her way. 

“Bathroom,” I gestured toward the restrooms and without a blink she gives Jesse a kiss on the cheek and joins my side. “I’ll be back,” I give James an innocent peck on the cheek.

“Don’t be too long, you still owe me a song,” He calls after us. Rushing through a gaggle of party-goers, I realized I had one-too-many dry martinis (Ben kept them coming), shots of Cuervo Silver and top shelf libations, I was now too aware of everything. Having to focus solely on walking in six inch heels was a little ridiculous for someone my age, but it was the only thing keeping my face from the floor at that point. 

We finally made it to the restrooms without a minute left to spare. Fortunately, there were a couple of empty stalls for my choosing. Being a practicing germaphobe, it usually took me at least three minutes to inspect before I could squat and release—no matter how bad I had to go. The stalls were well enough kept for me to choose the first one I laid eyes on and shove myself in. Pulling up my skirt, pulling down my stockings and momentarily trying to find the panties that I never put on. 

I sigh.

“So James is definitely into you,” I see Dana’s borrowed pumps in front of my stall door as she speaks.

“Well, no shit. And thanks for leaving me for the walking pincushion!” I was louder than I meant to be, the fault of the alcohol.

“I haven’t seen Jesse in ages, Tash,” She reasons, “It’s not like you didn’t have your hands full,” She declared with the stomp of her foot. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I slurred. My right heel caught onto some moisture on the tile and slipped, almost stumbling onto the seat, I caught myself just in time. It’s nothing like the frequent fear of contracting a disease to sober you up.

“Oh, _you_ —you know what I mean,” Adjusting myself, leaning onto the door to push the flusher down with my foot. I sigh knowing that once I left that stall, I was about to hear it from Drunk Dana. Needless to say, she was nothing compared to Decaffeinated Dana, but she was just as blunt, just as confrontational, just as irrational.

“Ben’s my therapist,” I hissed bolting through her to the sinks. I had all of ten second’s time to properly wash my hands before I was infected. “Anyway, James’ invited him, he’s not here for me,” Wetting my hands initially by passing them over the automatic faucet, I slammed down pretty hard on the pump of the soap. 

“You tell him that,” I was already exhausted with this pointless exchange to fuel the fire to a drunken bathroom disagreement. Classic Drunk Dana, real classic.

“That’s pointless, Dana, this is James’ party,”

“Why has he ordered you almost every drink you’ve consumed since we've gotten here? What therapist does that for their clients?” Her words were thick of what I thought was envy at first. My right brain took over when the left was soaked in all of the spirits Ben was apparently seducing me with.

“Stop. Just—please, I don’t feel like doing this tonight,” I could feel myself wanting to push her into the wall and shake her for what it was worth. Refraining from that, I kept my hands balled up at my sides. “You’re having a good time, I’m having a blast, let’s not do this here. Please,” Her look tells me _‘she’s so over tonight’_ without her having to tell me. “Over, done-with, gone, right?”

“Over, done-with, gone.” A sigh of relief passes through the lavatory. I look up to my reflection in the large mirror and see a look of disapproval of a girl waiting to use the sinks we were blocking. Now, sober Natasha wouldn’t have paid it any attention but drunk Natasha was the muscle.

“The fuck are you staring at?” It flew off of my tongue in a rush. I was ready for her to lunge forward and follow through. She must have known I was an emotionally and mentally unstable drug addict who got drunk off of her therapist’s tab.

“I fucking thought so,” There was Dana, proving to me over and over why I enjoyed her company. I followed her out of the bathroom like nothing ever happened.

After a screaming tribute to the Gin Blossoms in a hailing applaud to ’90’s alternative rock made possible by Dana and I, I was sucking on the end of an unlit cigarette and giggling aimlessly at the nigh sky. Cloud 9 couldn’t beat the mixture of everything behind the bar I was reeling from with an addition to the medication I was on. I stood against a brick wall people-watching silently. My attention drew to the posh club that stood across the street from the bar and the line of girls shivering in what a nudist would call a winter wardrobe. Huddling around each other for warmth, all the while fixing their eyeliner. 

_Idiots,_ I smiled reminiscing back to when I was one of them. I used to live for being fresh meat in the cold world of New York City. Those days when naivety was a trend and everyone-who-was-anyone had the right pill for the right thing. To feel better in the morning lying next to a perfect stranger, finding normalcy in the walk of shame, proudly admitting that I didn’t remember how I ended up in random places half-naked was the worst of it all. All the same, I would live to do it all over again. There was a certain serendipity in being so green, in the big city all alone for the first time ever. There was a definite romance about it that just wasn’t captured in my experience.

I was so off into my own thoughts, I hadn’t heard the footsteps coming behind me.

“Because I know better than to question your mental health, I will not question why you’re out here without your jacket or why you’ve not lit your cigarette,” He pulls out his light and it sparks for me to thrust the cigarette into it. “There you are. Much better,” How embarrassing was this? Ben was cloaked in this expensive Andrew Marc leather and his box of American Spirits in hand. As embarrassed as I would have been if I was sober, I didn’t feel an ounce of shame. He leaned up against the brick wall with me and gazed up at the stars thoughtfully.

“ _Benedict,_ are you leaving—are you leaving the party?” I was that pouty drunk girl who flirts with her therapist. He took a couple of moments to take in my stupor and let out a mild laugh.

“Yeah, I better make a night of it before I end up like you,” His words completely deflected off of me.

"What are you on about, huh? You sent two flights my way,"

"Sadly, that wasn't my doing,"

 _“Ben,”_ I whined. Somewhere in the back of my swollen brain, I was praying for something to sober me up and end this tirade of drunken flirting and baby-talk. I take a drag, releasing it into the air.

“Yes, Natasha,” Fits of laughter fought their way to the surface so forceful, he could barely hide it in those eyes.

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” Taken aback by my assertive query, he turns to face me and makes the lucid decision to play along.

“I don’t have the slightest idea why I’m still single,” I was really buying all of this. He takes a drag from his “Why, do you have someone in mind for me?”

 _“Mmm—“_ I gave it some thought. I had nothing. _“Maybe._ Maybe not,” I shrugged. That was enough to send him bowing with silent giggles. I didn’t see what was so funny. Catching his breath with a few coughs that followed, he held his arms out to me. 

“Come here, you’re shivering,” I stumbled over with an idiotic grin straight into his warmth. My ear lie on his chest and I could hear his lungs collapse and expand. It was the most beautiful thing. Neroli, roses with the addition of spiced rum soothed me in a way I couldn’t explain in a sober light. “Poor kid. I really hope you don’t pay for this in the morning,”

“Me too,” I was happy to be there for him, even if it was just for comic relief. He takes another drag.

“Natasha,”

“Yes,” He exhales with a smirk. I watched the rings of smoke he blew effortlessly. I wanted to sit in the depths of his lungs and blow out of the corners of his soft lips.

“Promise me something, will you?” I didn’t know what he was thinking, asking a drunkard to keep a promise was like asking a zebra not to have stripes. I didn’t care, though. I looked up at his eyes towering over me in that angle. How I didn’t melt under his watchful gaze, I didn’t know.

“Yeah—yeah,” I declared without committal.

“Promise me you’ll wait to have sex with James,” I was praying for something to get me back into the most sober state. Thus, I’d arrived.

“Ben—“

“Natasha, you’re very drunk—“

“I’m an adult—“ Flirty Natasha had gone and left all of her emotional baggage behind for the cleanup crew. Raging Bitch Natasha was settling in and rearranging the furniture.

“As factual as that may be, is it really the best decision you’re making?” Something changed inside of him, he had an empathetic urgency that I haven’t seen of him before. I ignored it and thrown it to the wayside, proposing it a psychological tactic.

“You are clearly fresh out of your fucking mind, you know that?”

“As it may seem—“

“No, what you want to do is show up _‘off the clock’_ and think just because you bought me a few drinks, you can coach me into some bullshit? You’re a fucking psycho, Ben!” He neared me and I pushed him as far away as my strength could carry. 

“Natasha, I’m trying—“ I wasn’t hearing anymore of it. I walked back into the lobby, slammed the door and left him to the cold. Opening the door again, he stood exactly where I left him.

“You’re a sick fuck!” He wasn’t expecting that, but I just had to have the last word. Thankfully, the hostess wasn’t there. I rushed up to the stairs and before I got back to the party, I stood at the side and took a few deep breaths. Truth be told, I didn’t want Ben to remember me like that but he had to know what lines he could cross and what boundaries were off-limits. I was sure that throwing verbal jabs at him in a drunken tantrum was the best way to let him know that. I cleared my throat and dabbed my cheeks dry.

I worked my way passing James’ friends in a hurried panic to get to him before someone could pull him away from me. I found him in an intuitive conversation about foreskin that I didn’t want any parts of. I tugged at his arm. He turns to me with a smile that doesn’t question where I’d been and why I was there for that long, but a smile that welcomes me back.

“I’m ready to go,” The conversation stops and he doesn’t say a word, just smiled.

“Sure thing, love,” He places another kiss on my forehead and bids his guests a fine farewell. While he retrieves our coats, I get pulled to the side by Dana. I wasn’t trying to hear another protest, so I approached this with warning.

“I’m going to head out with Jesse. Is everything okay?” 

“Everything’s great, give me a call tomorrow before work,” I grab her into a warm hug and wipe all of the wary from my conscious.

“Will do, sweetheart. Have fun but not too much fun, you hear?” She wags a finger in my direction. Before she could turn and walk away, James is ready with his coat on and holding mine out for me to slide my arms into.

The four of us walked to the curb and waved down two cabs. With a wave, we crawled into our perspective cabs. Their cab sped off in front of ours who awaited an address.

“Are we going back to yours?” We’d been double parked for what seemed like forever when the drivers behind us began to pound on their horns.

“Sure—sure. _Um—“_ It was probably the change of temperature that made my head pound with fury. “1267 Greenpoint Ave,” The pain became more severe with every light the cab passed.

“Here,” James slinks down in his seat. “Rest,” Without protest, I take the initiative to relax on his chest. Ben’s was much muscular than his.

“Wake me when we get to the apartment.”

“Of course. Now, rest,”

I watch James traipse around in nothing but ivory skin and a proudly hung flaccid penis. He walked around my studio as if he’s been there more than twice. He lie with me as if he knew me for ages. I watch his pensive expression flip through my vinyl collection. I stalked him from my position on the bed. He was a still-life work turned human, the work of a skilled hand and a thoughtful colorist. With all of the dull lights reflected on his blanched complexion, the freckles that wrapped around his thigh and prickled his backside glimmered. He was unreal. 

“I see you’re definitely a Morrissey fan,” His eyebrow rises, fingering through the cardboard skillfully. His fingertips were so delicately tuned to the rest of his body. They were soft and silent like the first snow falling from a pink sky. I could still feel them walking along the outlines of my body. A phantom of his every touch. 

“I’ve seen him a total of six times and met him twice,” I smile up to him, as he places the needle over the record. That familiar crackle of a freshly laden vinyl never got old in the exposed brick walls surrounding use. It was something very timeless about listening to a physical relic of music. 

“Wow,” He closes the lid softly and turns his attention back to the bed. “Was he as charming as Connor Oberst?” He giggles and pulls the blankets away. 

“I’d only met him for two minutes, but when you’re eighteen and you feel like someone speaks to you through their lyrics, that can feel like an eternity,” He lie facing me with his hands behind his head. The Smith’s Louder Than Bombs was the background noise to his baby blues stripping me down to a splintered branch in the wind. His left arm extends from behind his head and cushions itself in-between the pillow and my head. I lie closer to him, wrapping my arm around his torso. 

“What is it that you do to me, Natasha?” I answer abruptly with a snort and an ironic giggle. 

“What are you even saying right now,” I breathe through the laughter. Truthfully, this was becoming too deep for me. I wasn’t familiar with the sensitive side of James, but I knew something that would transform him back into the man I knew. 

“You evoke a gravitas that I can’t quite pen,” I sat up and gave him a curious look. It sounded like something straight out of a lyric book that he hadn’t yet shown me. I brushed his words off and went to the drawer in my night stand. Grabbing a square mirror, a bible and a prayer card. I sat up in bed with concentration. James eyes dulled into a cadaverous glare, knowing exactly what was about to happen. 

There were a lot of things that drew me to James and his quirky innocence. The very thing that gravitated this electric pull was that he wasn’t innocent in the very least. I spotted it in the shakes of his hands when he was on stage belting almost-perfect karaoke. The way his eyes baby blues transfixed on me in a crowd full of everyone he knew. But the white outline on the inside of his fingers were a dead-giveaway. 

He wasn’t so saved after all.

His eyes tore away from me, diving his body to the side of the bed where his jeans lie abandoned. Sitting the mirror on study on my lap, the bible lie next to me. I opened it to the deep square I knifed from cover-to-cover a long time ago. I pulled a small sandwich bag of white powder out of it, strategically opening it and spilling some onto the mirror. 

“A _gravitas?_ You’ve obviously known Ben long enough,” I roll my eyes, placing The Virgin Mary’s prayer card in between my fingers and evening out the lines of powder into a straight line. James pops up from the side of the bed with two, crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. 

“This is what I mean,” I am interrupted by his hands gesturing my way, using my coke cutting skills as some type of example. 

“What exactly _do_ you mean, James?” I try to hold back a fit of giggles to keep precision. 

“You keep blow in a cut-out of a bible and you cut it with— _the bloody_ —Virgin Mary!” He exasperates, rolling the bills into perfect cylinders. 

“Is this the _gravitas_ I invoke,” I quote mockingly, turning to him again. “This is premium shit. I’m not polluting this with the shit on the bottom of a credit card,” He cackles loudly and begins to shake his head. 

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” 

“Well here I am,” He hands me a bill. “In the flesh,” Holding one side of my nostril, the bill shoves its way up the other, I snort one line leaving nothing behind. A stiff burning sensation fills my nostrils and stings my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I go again and James follows shortly behind. 

“Christ, fuck!” James takes to his burning sinuses and squints, pinching the bridge of his nose. I turned to him, watching him curse at the ceiling. He squeezes the pillow behind him, burying his nails past the cotton of the case. He exhales another swear into the air and soon he is on my flight. 

We were suspended in time, laughing loudly to the sound of Kate Bush skipping. Usually, I would have had a mild myocardial infarction but I was too far gone after three lines out of the six I shared with James. 

“How did you know?” The moment sobered but the room floated on a tilted axis. He looks to me with an inquisitive glare. My core boiled, trying to keep a cool head that was spinning, and filled with ripening images. Placing everything back in its place, I take my eyes off of him to gather myself. 

“Quite easily, really,”

“Oh,”

“I mean,” A tiff of laughter blew in the air. “Who has a recovery party at a bar,” I amused him so much so, he rolls nearly off of the bed as hard giggles rip through his body. I tried to keep that chilled demeanor that I’d practiced with pouted lips in the mirror, but his delight was, in fact, intoxicating. I joined him on his coke induced giggle fit.

This was the most rewarding attribute to blow, you were always chasing that unreachable peak. It was like chasing that white butterfly around the lawn in the summertime; through the dandelions and weeds, it flutters without missing a beat until your hands close over it. The pique of your high is the tickle of it flying around your palms. It’s trapped and fighting for air, it’s enveloped in darkness. Finally, it’s stopped. You open your palm to it lying on it’s winged back. All of that chasing and precision wasted on a white moth. 

**A dead white moth.**

“Fine,” He enthuses, “I’m a tad inconspicuous, but you see, I hadn’t chosen the venue,” I slipped out of the covers, prancing around the bed to the turntable. “Jesse’s visiting from LA so he thought that a pub would be the perfect place to have it,” I take the needle off of my scratched vinyl, frowning.

“So who’s the front for?” My fingers stopped strolling through the crates of vinyl. James scrolls for the right words to pull smoothly. “You don’t want to let Ben down,”

“Natasha, when you’ve known someone for that long and—“ I stood in silent disbelief, knowing that had struck a chord with him.

“No,” He pauses in mid testimony, “I get it,” Submitting a genuine nod toward his position on the bed, I lift an Earth, Wind & Fire album. I place the needle carefully as that familiar enchants my hips and feet. I lend my hand out for him to take, “Dance with me,” I catch him completely by surprise pulling him off of the bed to his feet. He is sent stiff into another bout of giggles. The psychedelic bass of Fantasy begins to twang against the brick in my flat.

“What are you doing,” My hands remained intertwined with his as our feet glide softly through the air.

“I’m taking your lead,”

We twisted and twirled over the rugs and hardwood floors of my apartment completely bereft of clothing. It was a scene straight out of a Tarantino movie. I was no Uma, but I sustained adequate rhythm. James—on the other hand—he was a little rusty, but it made him easier to lead. I loved how his eyes watched my body; twisting and shoving my hips side to side, shaking what I had for a substantial ass. He would hold me and slowly rock me back and for with our bodies conjoined. His hands were firm on my hips when he began to leave soft kisses along my crown. He’d placed one hand under my chin in attempt to hypnotize with me with icy stare. 

When our lips connected, the high would subside and raw euphoria shot through the two of us. His lips left mine in a steamy haste, he didn’t waste time finding that spot under my chin but right between my ear. With his hands tangled in my hair, he gave a firm pull and a growl released from my diaphragm. I push him away with my fingertips on his chest. My eyes feasted on him like prey. I shoved him in the direction of my bed. He walks backward trying to get another kiss in every so often. 

With one last shove, his foot catches the fabric of the duvet he discarded on the floor. His eyes go wide when he lands on his back. I couldn’t help but snicker as he rubs his bony backside. I joined him on the floor, laughing uncontrollably. Images of his feet flying through the air as he slips on his ass filled my head on repeat. I was close to having my spleen burst open when he stops completely. 

Without a thought, I climb on top of him, straddling him with my thighs on either side. Salacious images of events earlier in the night filled my cloudy mind. The heat of his breath on my chin was all it took for me to lose it. His lips softly moved through mine, I thought it would be a great idea to take one in between my teeth and pull it, pull it until that bubble of blood squeezed through the pink skin of his lips. He whimpers softly and submits fully to me nurturing the wound with my tongue. I feel him growing under underneath my thighs as my body welcomed him once more. I pulled my position onto him upward, reveling in the twinkle of his eye. As I watched him admire my body above him, I gained a heady feeling as if I was floating above myself, just watching us do our thing; or on the bed watching myself ride him like a rogue wave. My hair tosses around in cadence with my breast and our ragged breathing.

We were a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BACK! Hope you love it!


	7. Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've never felt so wicked, as when I willed our love to die

The sun tried forcefully to use its blanching rays to burn holes through my dark curtains. The sounds of birds chirping their morning song in the distance slowly eased me out of the worst possible hangover I’ve had in years. Mixing liquors with opiates or inhalants was very tricky. For instance, starting with a beer or even a cocktail at the beginning of the night and sticking to that regimen with an addition of pills, snort-ables or whip-its—chances of suffering are slim-to-none. My head lie in a pillow of my own hair and a puddle of drool that two Koi fish could comfortably splash about in. 

Lying there was my only defense against the headache from a Chernobyl experiment awaking in my temples. It was bad enough that there was a trash truck on the side of my building apparently trying to back up,

_**BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.** _

_Make it stop, Jesus,_ I couldn’t even begin to think how much shit was in my system. I felt like a college experiment to survey human consumption—gone absolutely wrong. I hear a dorm slam in the distance.

 _Oh no! It’s Ramone and Tina,_ They were the couple that lived across the hall from me. A door slamming only meant that bickering and constant yelling was sure to follow. You could hear the two of them go at it in a comatose. And they fought about the most trivial things:

_“You left your plate in the sink again! Ramone, how could you!”_

_Anything but the plate argument again,_ Tina was now in the hall belittling Ramone and his weight loss, poking him in the chest and snarling at him like a pit bull in heat. Ramone insults her mother’s cooking and taunts at her sister’s mustache wax job. Things take a turn for the worst when Tina pushes his toupee off of his shiny dome and it skitters onto the ground right next to my door.

“You’re pure evil! Do you know that?” Ramone spats with his thick Brooklyn roots cursing at his wife. “Evil like your mother!” He punctuates.

“Go away…” Whispering to the hangover and the couple battling each other in front of my door. The faucet in the kitchen sink runs softly as a soundtrack to their lovers’ quarrel. Dishes were quietly being shuffled in and out of the sink, past through the water and clinking into the dish rack. 

The squabble roars into my living space as footsteps leave the kitchen softly pitter-pattering against the hardwood. The door creeks open and the small opening increases the resounding altercation by one million decibels. Deciding I’d had enough of them for one hangover, I turn over in defeat. The dry side of my pillow could only be described as love. My hair was still in a tangle mess around my eyes so there was no use opening them. I knew it was going to be bright and annoying and soon enough, I was going back to bed.

As soon as Ramone threatened to leave the TV on for an entire year because Tina couldn’t do anything about it—they stopped. 

_Is it really over,_ Their arguments would last as long as one of my shifts at work.

Literally.

They would be going back-and-forth at each other in the morning when I left, and they refused to settle by the time I came back. This was record timing.

“Hi,” His smile could be heard through the words in which he spoke. That was his magic, his charm. “My—uh—girl has had a real pisser of a week and she’s sleeping-in on her only day off,” Tina coos sympathetically. “I don’t exactly live here but I’d hate to be a bother and ask you guys to keep it down for a bit,” Rolling over to face the door in my original position, my eyes open to be met with the site of James with a towel around his waist and nothing on his chest.

“Oh honey,” I am met again with the puddle of slimy drool I discarded for the other side of the pillow. _UGH._ “Of course we can—“ She scoffs, “Never mind my husband’s obnoxious rambling,”

“Tina,” Ramone warns. “Our apologies, young man,” Ramone’s raspy voice omits.

“Thank you, both of you. And really I mean no harm—“

“Aren’t you darling,” Tina muses with her hands flailing away. “He’s so suave with his hair and his accent,” She speaks of him as if he’s not standing right there. James nervously laughed and went to shut the door.

“Why, thank you,” He blanches, “I’ve got to go now,” Before they could bid adieu, the door was locked. Quietly, I sat up and scrambled to wipe the sleep out of my eyes, drool away from my face and maintain the hair helmet I had. Albeit, making me completely nauseous from the rapid motion. My stomach gurgled as a rival of bubbles raised in my throat. “Some neighbors you have, huh?” James looks to me for an answer. My face begins to feel hot and the surface of my mouth is coated with warm saliva.

Before he can give me a questioning look, I bolt into the bathroom, throwing the toilet seat up and bid a repulsive farewell to the contents of my stomach. He rushes behind me, trying to gain his footing comfortably in the cramped bathroom. I kneel over the toilet with my arm outstretched on the lid and my hand on the flusher. I’m coughing and gagging, my stomach lurches one more and my eyes water. James twists my hair in his hands behind me and rubs my back.

“That’s right,” He encourages, “Let it out,” It was then that I realized it had been my second time being soothed into vomiting that week. The toilet water wasn’t blue anymore. It was now a putrid with small pink chunks floating about. Flushing, I hadn’t wanted James to catch my esophagus painting on display. I roll onto my butt with my legs outstretched in the doorway of the bathroom. James runs the shower for me and fills the lid of mouthwash to its full capacity. “Here you are,” He kneels down to my level, with sorrowful eyes and a forgiving smile.

After I swish the oral antiseptic around for a minute-and-a-half, spit, and flush—he helps me off of the tile and onto the toilet bowl lid. I felt so helpless. I could barely lift my arms for him to help me into the shower. The steam enchanted its way onto my skin and suddenly, I accepted my craving to be cleansed.

 

James had began to wash the dishes to cook us breakfast before I awoke to a screaming couple and blowing chunks. Seeing as I didn’t have much of an appetite, he fixed me a cup of tea, in which he constantly referred to as a _‘cupper’,_ and delighted himself to a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Even though the sound of the spoon scooping the milk and soggy flacks drove me ostensibly mad, I enjoyed spending that morning with him.

As he washed his bowl and refilled my cup of tea, a vivid word rolls in the creases of my memory.

He comes back to the bed and sits against the wall next to me. Blowing away the heat shooting from the mug, I smile in wonder. 

_He called me his girl,_ That was all I could think about. Theodore bounced around the apartment, clawed his way onto the bed to gnaw on my toe. His words resonated in my mind like a song that wouldn’t get out of your head.

“Does he always do that,” James had been observing Theodore’s ill domestic behavior.

“Do what,” All the while, Theodore has a paw steadying the movement of my foot and my entire toe in his mouth. I honestly wouldn’t have known it if he snatched it clean off. 

“He’s having a go around the whole apartment and then he stops to munch on your pretty little piggies,” God, I lived for the way he dropped the sound of his T’s when he spoke. It was like hearing Bach for the first time.

“That’s how we have fun. Isn’t it, Theo,” Hearing his name being called, he looks up with shock and scrambles under the bed. “See, he’s perfectly fine,” James shakes his head in laughter.

“You had this smile on whilst you were blowing your tea cool,” I felt ousted. Busted. There was no running from this. “What was that about,”

“Uh—“ Like a deer in headlights, I searched for the words across the dark path of a road, but there was no salvation. “Just—“ I gave, “Thank you…for everything,” That smile made its way back to my lips again.

“You’ll never need to thank me,” _Because I’m your girl, right?_ My lips braced together to stop me from saying anything I thought. I sat there and nodded like an idiot. He looks to his phone on the night stand. He frowns.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” I wanted to ask him if he meant it or was it all just a front to get Ramone and Tina away from the door, but things were taking a much different coarse.

“Bad news first,” I curl my knees to my chest and take one last sip of my tea before the news is broken.

“I have to be heading out soon,” James was the best company—who wasn’t Dana or a feline—that I had in months and I didn’t want to be locked in this apartment with my own thoughts all day. Slowly, stewing in the embarrassment of puking before James and Ben in the same week. It was cringeworthy.

“Aw,” I clung onto the simple, _‘I'll miss you’,_ that was sure to follow in fear of sounding clingy. Everything was going to be drab without his light shining its way into my heart, soul and pants.

“But,” He punctuates with a sly smirk. “I am free to come over for pizza and wings on me, tonight,” I’m his girl, I was sure my eyes were in their wide screaming position when I turned toward the window. “So what do you say? Pizza, wings and a movie. Any movie you like. What kind do you like, by the way?”

“I like pizza…” I turn to him with a dense expression. _Of course you like pizza, you nuisance! Movies! He wants to know what movies you like!_ “Oh, movies,” I gave a nervous laugh, wiping the sweat of my palms onto my knees. I’m gross when I’m nervous. “I like all movies,” I failed myself again. 

“Oh—okay, even romantic comedies with sappy endings,” Especially not romantic comedies with sappy endings.

“No, I hate them,” 

“Alright, we’re getting somewhere,” He places a soft kiss on my perspiring forehead. “Well, we can scan through the all of them and see what you like,” That was a good idea, 

“I’d like that,” I was panting from the heat he’d caused me just piercing those eyes into mine.

“Great, so it’s a—“ _PLEASE SAY DATE, PLEASE SAY DATE, PLEASE SAY DATE,_ “—Date,” A buzzer goes off in my mind as if my motor skills were run by a basketball team shooting free throws at the line. Relief showered over in a calm resolve.

“Of course,”

 

James left minutes after he’d asked me on another night-in. I was starting to get a feel for him listening to records and holding my hair back while I puked. Even though I hadn’t asked him about the _‘girl’_ comment earlier, the way he kissed me goodbye was all I needed to validate his submission. He added a little extra verve in his parting by grabbing my ass with both hands and squeezing it numb. I bit my lip so hard, I swore it would bleed. I looked up to him with his scruff and I seen the bruise I left on his lip from last night, marking him. I sent him off with a spring in his step and a night he’ll never forget. I went back to bed immediately after he left; almost not wanting to be awake without him there.

 

It was around 2pm when I awoke to firm knocks on my door. My eyes shot open and I realized that I was just in a wife-beater and a pair of underwear with pink dogs on it. I doubted it was real at first, thinking that it was just my brain telling my body that it was an idiot for consuming liquor, coke and meds all in one evening. It wasn’t a loud pounding, so I knew it wasn’t my landlord. And Dana wasn’t screaming for me to _“Open up, bitch,”_ so I know it couldn’t have been her. 

_Maybe he forgot something behind,_ It could have been James, maybe he forgot his wallet behind, or his girlfriend. Who knows…

“I’m coming!” The knocker stopped and waited for me to become decent before opening the door. I grabbed a pair of sweat pants, shuffling them on my legs and adjusting them. they were a pair of pants Scott had left and since then they’d become up-for-grabs. Theodore paced back and forth anxiously in front of the door. I shooed him away with my foot, unlocking the chain, the latch and the nob. Swinging the door open, I wasn’t too pleased with who was standing behind it with flowers and a sad face, 

“Scott…” _Oh fuck, this can’t be good._ “Scott, what are you doing here,” Telling by the amount of beard he’d grown and the fact that his short dark brown locks were looking a little wild, you could tell that these weren’t his better days.

“Natasha, I’ve been calling you for over six hours now,” _My phone, where is it?_ I pushed my hair away from my face in shock. _Where the fuck did I leave it this time?_

“Fuck,” I kicked the door, resulting in stubbing my toe. I was too proud to let my eyes show that my toe was now crunched into a pile of bone. “I think I left it at the club last night,” I did feel bad for him…a little. He hadn’t known anything about last night, or that I didn’t want to deal with his drama anymore. Knowing that I had to break the news to him, I sighed and moved out of his way to enter. “Come in,” He walks through the door looking around for the remnants of another man. 

“What club did you go to,” I wasn’t about to get into the redundant inquisition that he would put me through.

“Look, that’s not the point. We do need to talk, though,” He gave me a bushel of red and pink roses. I hated flowers. He inches his way to me with his even smile, bluish-gray eyes and square jaw. My body was a little sad that I had to let him off of the hook. He gave the best head I’d ever experienced…ever.

“Baby,” He places his hand softly on my cheek. I tried turning away from that smile that I wanted to practice making babies with. “We don’t have that time. Our flight leaves in three hours and you need to be packed,” _Of course this was happening._

“Scott as much as I would love—“ I had to stop sugarcoating things for him. It was getting me nowhere and before I know it, Katie will have found out about the affair and boil Theodore. And that wasn’t about to happen. “I—“ I thought of a million ways to phrase this breakup to let him down a little harder but make it seem as though I was letting him settle easy into it. What I had to say had to be something he would never forget. For Katie’s sake and all of the women he’d ever duped into an unlawful affair. “I’m not your white whale, Scott,” I shrugged softly, seeing him shrivel into a shell of a man. I watch his eyes scatter about trying to place words together to make me rethink my decision.

“But—“ He was boiling to a slow demise right in front of me. His gorgeous blue eyes rimmed with tears he’d fought back.

“Come on, have a seat,” I’d let him take a seat on my bed. As soon as he sat, his hands drew up to his face and he howled his heart into his hands. I watched his slow—but satisfying—fall from grace. Scott always tampered with his own reality, it was time for him to live in it, and fix himself. “Hey…” His cries were becoming louder with every shake of his body. “Scott, you can’t let this break you, do you hear me?” I loved being pseudo-sensitive. It was one of my many ways of reverse psychology. I could have Ben’s job any day. “You’re wealthy, you’ve got great hair—“ His sobbing stops.

“Then why don’t you want me,” He was crying like a bride who had been left at the alter.

“You were married, Scott and you ended your marriage to go gallivanting with me. That’s not fair to any of us,” I expected him to draw back and sob another pond for more Koi fish to splash about in, but he didn’t.

“You’re right, but she doesn’t want me back,”

“She shouldn’t, you cheated on her,” He stewed in his own resentment for a little. Taking in the guilt that he pawned for poker chips in, and he was reeling from it. “You’ve got a lot going for you. I mean, you’re still good looking,” I knew exactly what to say to get him out of my apartment as fast as I could.

“Do you think so…” I sat beside him with a script in my mind.

“Of course I do, and I’m positive there are countless other women who think the same. You’ve got to find your white whale, Scott,” He sniffles back a few breaths and regains his masculinity. He leaves his seat from my bed and looks down to me.

“You’re right, I’ve got to find the one,” I didn’t know what I was saying but I’ve heard that Moby Dick reference too many times not to use it.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I stood next to him, leading him toward my door. “I know so…”

“Thank you,” He grips me in a long hug and I feel all of the biceps and muscular abs I’ll miss. _Goodbye, body of a Greek God._

“No sweat,” I open the door to an empty hall.

“We’ll keep in touch, right,”

“White whale, Scott,” That was me telling him that I could live six consecutive hells before I wanted to see him again.

“Right,” He smiles. That was a lot easier than I thought it would have been. Briefly, I denoted the value of memorable literary quotes, and their relevance to breakup lines.

“You’re going to be fine as soon as you put your best foot forward,” _I would have made the best high school counselor._ Scott turns on his foot toward the door, and out of the blue emerged a tall, dark figure looming down the hall in the direction of my door. 

_No, that can’t be…_ With hair straight out of a shampoo commercial and he threads fresh from a runway in Paris, Ben showed up uninvited.

“Okay,” I nervously give as Scott’s eyes twinkle with a love unrequited. “Scott, you’ve gotta go,” Ben is coming closer and I do everything but push Scott directly into the hallway and try to shut my door. Only, I push Scott directly into Benedict and as I try to close my door, they are both standing in the doorway apologizing profusely to one another. If I wasn’t standing there, I wouldn’t believe it happened if I had been told. 

“You left your phone on the pavement last night,” Scott stood there in mild admiration. 

“You must be her white whale…” Benedict’s attention breaks from me and is now the concern of Scott’s mental state. He tilts his head undecidedly and cocks his British brow upward. Scott walks down the hall and I am stuck with Benedict and the peculiar look on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had soooo much fun writing this! I hope you had as much fun reading it! Thank you!


	8. Rollecoaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some killer Queen, you are.

I was at the receiving end of a boundless nightmare. A subservient mix of indifference and ambiguity opposed to trepidation and fear. A dull hum away from insanity; it was more than lucid—it was a disturbed reality. 

Blatant florescent beams vexed any sanctity left within me. Cold plastic seats were a royal blue with deliberate cut-outs in the back to stave off any precautions of getting comfortable. The sickening smell of pine oil and aerosol burned my nostrils and tightly clenched my throat. Sterility was sure to fail repelling all or any microorganisms with latin prefixes from penetrating heavily bleached surfaces. Orderlies, nurses and the kind of people who wore scrubs, rushed past with vigor. Their crisp white shoes squeaked onto the scuffed tiles and never-minded the agonizing sound.

This was my personal hell. 

Somewhere in between painfully unraveling myself from Scott’s digit by way of Moby Dick, and careening my phone out of Ben’s grasp, I managed to break my third toe on my right foot. I also sustained a split toenail and a bruised ego. 

 

After having experienced the blowing crescendo **Natasha + Scott(Kate) = negative-white-whales** , Ben was blown into oblivion. His eyebrows were raised curiously in their upright position. Parting his pillowy lips, a question formed in his mind, but it never came to surface.

“Dana—“ He seized the chance read my foremost befuddled expressions. “I remember you introducing us last night,” He pushed his careless curls to to the back of his crown anxiously, but somehow so cool. “After becoming the bullseye, in which you propelled drunken insults, I picked it up off of the ground,” Having spent most of my day regressing that evening’s dispute, I had nowhere to run from it.

He showed up to my door cut from the scenes of a diner in Twin Peaks; his hair, messily tousled perfectly around the sharp edges of his cheeks and chin. Wearing a gray Pink Floyd tee with medium-wash Diesels and a dusty pair of white Puma “trainers”, as he called them. A woolen cardigan of gray and beige speckles completed his relaxed fit. 

“She phoned you at about eleven—this morning. I told her that you’d misplaced it and she gave me your address,” He spoke carefully, never losing me in his eye range. 

“Right,” As he stood there with nothing else in his hands to bestow upon me, I realized I was an apology short of getting him out of my doorway. A palpable density developed in between him and I, blankly darting our eyes away from each others awkward wrath. Apparently, he was waiting for me to take the high road and lie everything onto the surface.  
“Look,” I began, with angst. A breeze flowed through the dank corridor, briefly reminding me that I hadn’t been wearing a bra. Carefully crossing my arms over my chest, I continued. “Last night, I was really—“

“Bombed? Tanked? Smashed?” He’d cut me off. In frustration, I pressed my foot to the ground with a soft thud. A dull, but searing pain shot up the length of my right calf and foot.

“Ow— _FUCK!_ ”

“Oh my…” My third toe had been purple and swollen fat, the nail obliterated with small splotches of blood surfacing. 

That was when I knew that I wouldn’t be returning to my mid-afternoon nap any time soon.

Instead, I hopped around my apartment bickering back and forth with Ben on a shoe selection that avoided agitate the toe any further. The very thought of him knowing what the interior of my studio looked like, made my stomach flip. A similar feeling to when a parent invites the child’s teacher to dinner. 

He, for sure, did not belong on this side of Brooklyn. Granted, it was becoming a hip neighborhood but Ben was so above that lifestyle, I saw a slight decline in his value just by him standing in my living-bedroom.

He warned me that the time on his meter was sure to run out, as he predicted leaving a lot sooner. I insisted that hailing a taxi would be most convenient for me, seeing as how I couldn’t possibly let him drive me to the hospital. He hushed all of my qualms by pointing this hideous pair of Old Navy sandals that I’d used to kill the occasional cockroach and fend off suspected burglars. 

Upon a whiny refusal, Ben wouldn’t budge. I also needed to get him out of there before he noticed that his best friend left just hours before he invited himself in. Succumbing to having to be chauffeured around by him, I politely inquired if I could quickly change my clothes. I wasn’t about to be seen at a hospital wearing a stretched tank, baggy sweats and purple flip-flops—in the dead of October nonetheless.

“Natasha, the meter,” He warrants, slightly flailing his nostrils. Ignoring his caution, I ransacked my drawers for a pair of yoga pants and a better fitting shirt. My bra was coyly tucked under a fold of my duvet. I quickly grabbed it and shuffled my way into the bathroom.

Coming out of the complex seeing a black Jaguar parked in front of a ticking meter, I understood Ben’s frustration a little greater. I tried my hardest to suppress how utterly fascinating the vehicle ran. And the interior was sex personified. When he wasn’t shouting at drivers who cut him off, he whipped the wheel with a precision only the owner of a luxury car could harness. It said so much about him; the camel leather, elite center console, GPS screen without any noticeable fingerprints on it. It was the quotient to his lithe demeanor. 

 

Coughing, sneezing, sniffling zombies boxed us into a proverbial corner. Literally, everyone who was waiting in the Emergency waiting area, either had influenza or the zombie virus from Dawn of the Dead circa 1978. They walked slowly, circling the seating area with blue faces and dimmed eyes. All I could subject myself to, was hoping and praying that none of them sat next to—, behind—, or in front of us. Hope quickly dwindle for me, when Chain Smoking Chelsea sat behind me with a grainy cough and phlegmy throat. My body stiffened tighter and tighter with each hack that breached from her uncovered mouth. And I couldn’t do anything about it, as long as my therapist-turned-parole-officer was right beside me, there was nothing I could do other than wait. Wait for one of her lungs to slap me in the back of the head, then I might object to getting up and finding another hospital. 

This was penultimately the worst day of my life.

Speaking in extremes, the definite, most terrible day of my life was having Aunt Flo visit during Senior week down the shore. An event I whole-heartedly refuse to elaborate on, similar to the moments ahead of me waiting to be seen for my fractured toe.

 

No longer phased by the weak conditions of the soon-to-be out patients that sat around us, we took to entertaining ourselves by scrolling through one of the many social media apps on my smart phone. One in particular, was an app where you post pictures of yourself, a place or a thing and see how many of your friends approve of the angle in which you took it, the filter used to make it more intense, and how ironically captivating it was. This was how I kept tabs on the people I’d went to high school and college with, I was following them with a ghost account. It displayed my name but I’d never think to add a picture, that was counter-productivity. I logged on every now and then to laugh at how adulthood warped them into local produce eating, farmer’s market shopping, vegan recipe researching hipsters.

“This is my cousin Lydia,” I pointed to a girl who was about my age, sandy blond hair and brown eyes. She was posing with a couple of her college buds with a bonfire perfectly placed it in the background. She seemed like she was living her life gratuitously, she even had the Phillies baseball cap, lens-less glasses and corrected smile to prove it. “She went through this crazy goth phase when we were younger,” A phase in which my Aunt Dolores believes I imposed on her. “She wasn’t allowed over our house anymore after we’d snuck out to see this local band,” A nostalgic smile tugged at the corners of my lips. 

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” 

“The drummer of the band was her twenty-six year old boyfriend…We were sixteen…”

“Oh,” That admonished everything he was thinking. “When was the last time you’ve spoken to her,”

“It’s been some time—years,” Looking at all of her pictures and seeing that familiar smile made me miss all of the nights we’d sit up in my room plotting against the world, just her and I. We would talk about turning eighteen and going to college, and how many piercings and tattoos we were going to get. She had a spontaneity about her that I envied. She was boundless with so many ideas, always thinking on her feet, she could spin a lie faster than I could. Lydia was my very first best friend.  
“She does look happy, though,” Ben stays to himself and lets me relish in what little happiness I have for anyone related to my mother. I scroll through a timeline filled with pictures of the people who followed me. I watched life change for so many of the people I used to know as misfits. Now, most of them were socially acceptable and formatting to everything they hated.

“Kelly Samuel,” I stopped scrolling to show Ben an example of conformity. “She had the worst pill problem in high school,”

“What does that go to show you,” Ben was back in his leather chair again; analyzing all of my flaws and faults. He was so annoying.

“Don’t start this,” I wasn’t having any of it. After our quaint conversation in the car about him crossing the line as my therapist, I wasn’t taking anymore of his cautionary glares or raised eyebrows unless we were in his office.

“Or else, what,” I had taken my eyes off of my phone to assess his challenge, or even that he was remotely challenging me in the first place.

“Or else, I’ll replace you with Dr. Phil’s anthology of unqualified advice he’s pulled out of his bumpkin ass,” Ben nods and goes back to his upright seating position, turning his eyes to the television playing reruns on mute. I place my phone faced down onto my lap. Another fleeting glimpse caught my eye, a gaggle of nurses casually crowding around each other passing bubbly smiles and wide-eyes our way.

“I should have known better than to threaten your ardent knowledge of literature. Seeing as, you are clearly a fan of Herman Melville’s work,” He delivers his sarcasm with chagrin and a calm that couldn’t be mimicked. 

“Look,” I slapped his arm, getting his attention and gestured to the huddle of women giving him cutesy glances and playful smirks. “Is this the attention you draw everywhere you go,”

“Oh, put it to rest, will you,” He rolls his eyes, never giving them a second look. I knew they were all wondering what his purpose with me had been. No matter how dressed-down he had been that day, I looked like a hobo next to him. I was wearing flip-flops. 

_For the love of fuck, flip-flops in OCTOBER._

I scooted my feet back under the chair to make them less visible. The huddle broke and the women scattered about the hospital with a mission. One of them in particular caught my eye, as she had been the ringleader of the bunch. She had a head of wavy honey-brown hair with big green eyes. She wore a pair of royal blue scrubs and her build was something to pine over. She had a bust to die for, a flat stomach and a nice rear—not as round and peachy as mine—but it rounded out her figure proportionately. With a body built for summer, a fresh emerald manicure and a pack of light blue American Spirits bobbing out of her breast pocket—she was impeccable.

“You should follow her out on her smoke break and light her cigarette,” Briefly remembering that he’d done that too often for me already. He shakes his head, signaling that there wasn’t much interest he had in picking up nurses in a hospital.

“After that, then what?” His attention was mine again and I couldn’t escape his glare. I position my body fully toward him.

“You’re a thirty-six year-old man, Ben. If you don’t know how to spark up a conversation and get her number, then we both need a therapist,”

“What could I possibly say to her that another man hasn’t? Do you really think I’ll be the only man who has ever interrupted her cigarette with light conversation and ostensible musing?” For a man who drove a pussy magnet for a car, he knew that last thing about being suave intentionally.

“You have to show a little interest in her, to begin with,”

“Is that how James wooed you into grasp,” Initially, I was put off by this remark, but I knew exactly what to say to bite back.

“No, but the interest he shows in getting his best friend laid proved to me that not only does he believe in miracles, he also has a very big heart,” Ben grimaces with a smug smile. He wants to strangle me, but he knows he can’t.

_I win._

“You’re only as funny as your flattest joke,” He turns back to the television hung high in the corner. I didn’t have a reverb or a slick comment to follow that. I sat in victory with a satisfied smile just waiting to be seen.

 

My feet swung slowly below me. I was propped up onto a flat cushioned service waiting for a nurse to see me. It had been a half-an-hour after Ben and I exchanged quips and I was slowly getting restless. I didn’t see the point in going to the ER for a broken toe, but there was no telling him that. I looked down, still very embarrassed about the flip-flops. My poor toe was now a deep violet and almost precisely matched the color of said flip-flops. I flipped my head to the ceiling, letting out an audible sigh.

The door to the office creeks open and I hear a variety of unfamiliar voices . The nurse only half-enters with her back turned to the door, apparently holding a conversation with a colleague. Light giggles play out as I catch a glimpse of her navy scrubs.

_No shit._

I stayed as casual as I possibly could as she entered with her clipboard and winning smile.

“Natasha, right?” My heart nearly stopped just seeing her face-to-face.

_She’s fucking flawless._

“Hi,” She sticks her hand out to mine in attempt to greet me. I take it with a smile, sucking in what little gut I have and pushing any stray hairs out of my face.

“I’m Nurse Harris, but Casey’s fine.” I wasn’t expecting her name to be Casey; she had more of a Sarah—or—Audrey look to her. Casey was so simple, so flippant.

“It’s nice meeting you,” I nod in visible fascination.

“Likewise,” Her handshake was business-like, but still feminine. “So,” She takes a seat on a stool and crosses her knees. The clipboard is balanced on her lap and she begins to jot notes down, visually examining my foot. “There’s obviously some swelling going on. It’s bruised without a doubt,” She slightly winces going back to her notes. “Would you mind telling me what happened,” She spoke intensively.

“I slammed my toe into my front door,”

“Ouch,” She sighs, she jots down more notes. “Luckily, it’s not a double fracture, maybe a hairline fracture, though. From what I see, it won’t be long before healing completely but we’ll see what the X-rays say,” She goes to a table behind where she sits and grabs a small rod. “I want you to let me know if you feel anything. I know this may seem redundant, but it’ll help me better understand the extent of the injury,” She slides the rod carefully under my toe and pulls it up slowly. It was a little tension that further subsided. “Do you feel anything?”

“A little,”

“Okay, try bending the toe,” I tried to curl my other toes first so that it would be reflex to curl on its own. A pain slowly built in the console of my foot and shot to my ankle. She takes more notes, and stands. 

“Ow,” I wince.

“Well, it’s definitely broken,” She flips the page and sighs. 

“Good to know,” 

“I just need you to answer some screening questions before you go in for your X-ray,” 

“Okay…”

She interviewed me with preliminary screening questions, some of them in which I’ve already filled out with my paperwork on arrival. She took my vitals and blood pressure, which were both normal. She told me that there was no need in taking any blood as it was a minor visit. I didn’t have to worry about the entire hospital knowing about my frequent recreational drug use. Her hand never left the lines of the notepad drafting more words onto it.

“Is that your boyfriend?” I was so spun by her question, I’d completely missed that she was actually speaking English. “The gentleman waiting for you,” I sat there stunned, flushed red and giggling under my breath.

“No, not at all. He’s a really good friend, though,”

“He seems like it,”

An impalpable awkward silence followed. 

I couldn’t send her out like a sheep to a lone wolf just to be chewed out and rejected. What would that make me? Plus, given that Ben wasn’t even interested in her made me rethink his sexuality full-circle. 

“Yeah, he’s totally just a friend,” I gave a nervous laugh. She stares me down trying to wire an answer out of me.

“Is he a single friend?” She was reaching, it was evident that this was the farthest she was going to go to inquire about him.

“Oh, yeah. He’s totally not seeing anyone; as single as they come, right?” I don’t know what possessed me in those moments, but suddenly my breathing became irregular and I was flustered.

“Right. So…” Her eyes darted in the direction of the door. 

_She’s really asking for my blessing right now?_

As much as I wanted to condone this a match made in heaven, it was going to be weird. He was my therapist. I wouldn’t be able to see him, without thinking of her leaving soft traces of lipstick down his long neck. Although, I was consummating one of his best mates. I could only imagine how Ben would react knowing that James and I were involved. Like, involved-involved. Come to think of it, he probably already knew.

“Oh…” The dim light that she saw over my head flickered brightly. “Go for it,” It was obvious how nervous I was. I sounded like a motivational speaker.

_Go for it? Who says that?_

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” Without hesitation, I stammered.

“We were outside having a cigarette and he’d said some nice things about you,” That rat bastard. “I just didn’t have the tenacity to ask him,”

“It’s the accent,” Without a hitch, it just flowed out of my mouth. Totally understanding where she was coming from. I knew I wasn’t the only one subdued by Ben’s couth and brevity.

“You’re so right,” She enthused. “It totally caught me off-guard,” Casey was likable. It was nice to know that besides the body of a wet dream personified, she had a fun personality and she was an intellectual. “Well, I’m going to go put this in the system. You can follow me to the X-ray room,” I slowly get down from where I sat and continued to out of the door behind her. Passing Ben in a seat in the hall, Casey gives him a friendly wave, I smirk his way. He follows up with chagrin pulling at the narrow corners of his lips. 

 

After the X-ray, they declared that I had a hairline fracture and it would take at least three weeks for it to heel completely. They cleaned the toenail up quite well and gave me a splint. They taped the broken toe to its friend next to it for support. I met with Ben in the hall again to show him the result of waiting hours in a disease infested institution.

“I have got to send James a picture,” He pulls out his brand new smart phone and begins his flash photography. 

“I’m ready to go, Ben,” We’ve spent what seemed like an entire day together, and in no way did I have enough energy to squeeze more hours into the day we’ve had. 

“Fine, if you insist,” He stands from his seat and we begin to walk toward the exit. Dusk was already setting in and all I wanted to do was make it home for a shower and to feed Theodore. I reminded myself that James was coming over later with pizza and wings. The thought comforted me momentarily. I held onto everything he said this morning. I kept reliving the moment where he called me his “girl” in front of Ramone and Tina.

 _Maybe he was going to make it official tonight? Over beer and buffalo wings._ That was romance to me. 

As we walked to the sliding doors of the exit, we pass Casey at the registration desk. She was looking over something on a computer monitor, when she looked up and seen that we were leaving. She comes from behind the desk and waves at me but B-lines her way straight to Ben. He turns to her with casual conversation and all of a sudden, everything mutes for me. I watch his hands find their way to her forearms. He holds them there as to tell her not to leave. My stomach buckles and my knees shake, my hands were naturally balled at my sides. I stood behind them in the most awkward position just staring into the space that separated them. They gushed at each other with unbeatably genuine smiles. I’d never seen this side of Ben where he was completely enamored by one person so much so, that his nose wrinkled as he flashed an extremely toothy grin. 

I felt so insignificant beside them.

“I’m free Tuesday,” Casey shrugs.

“Tuesday is perfect,” Casey pulls her phone out of her pocket and hands it to him. My throat is so dry. Ben smiles cheekily, knowing exactly what to do by entering his number.

“I’ll text you when I’m off, I guess,” She winks. Grabbing her phone, she twirls off mouthing a ‘thank you’ on her way past me. 

_What have I done?_

 

Ben and I traveled through the busy streets without an exchange of much of anything. I knew I had to thank him, but if I did it too soon, that would lead him to asking me what I thought about Casey. Quite frankly, I liked her but I just wasn’t in the mood to hear him gush about her. 

The streetlights illuminated his sharp visage, with shadows perfectly bouncing off at the right angles. There was a stillness about Ben that I wanted to tap into. I knew Casey would be crazy for it. So many women would long for his perfected cupid’s bow to press on their nape of their neck, and she was the only one to ever make it past the accent, and the boundless charm. 

Come Tuesday night, she was going to sitting exactly where I sat on our way from the hospital. She was going to admire all of the stillness within him and his undisturbed mentality while he drove her to some fancy restaurant in Manhattan with portion sizes smaller than baby fists. And when he drops her off at her door, she’s going to have those lips, she’s going to taste his smile and that will be the end of it. Even though he’ll politely decline her offer for coffee, she’ll have gained so much from him.

My phone vibrates, taking me out of my hypothetical haze.

**Ur poor little piggies**  
i’ll b ovr @ 9  
if u need anything txt me luv  
xxxo James 

_I was his ‘luv’._

“You haven’t been this quiet since the first day we’d met,” Ben interrupted me from my reply. “Is everything okay,”

“Yeah, I’m just really tired,” Of course that wasn’t the reason I was in deep-thought, but he’d buy it.

“Well, your flat is just this right so you can return to your bed and your cat. What’s his name, by the way?” 

“His name’s Theodore,” He nods and goes back to making that right and parking in front of my building. “Well, today’s been eventful to say the least,” He breathes.

“I couldn’t agree more,” 

“Thank you, Benedict,”

“Of course, Natasha,” His bravado held a sincere tonality that I hadn’t heard from him until then. He gets out and comes around to the passenger door to open it. “Are you going to need any help getting up to your flat?”

“No, Ben. It’s okay,”

“You’re sure—”

“I’ll be fine,” 

“Alright,” He gets back into his car and leans over to the passenger window. “I’ll see you Monday,”

“Yep, see ya Monday,” I wave him off and he pulls out without a hitch.

I wasn’t sure if it was the chill that blew through me forcefully, or the fact that I stood on the sidewalk with my eyes longing for his headlights to come back into view; I felt withdrawn.

I felt empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I am not dead.  
> No, I have not been kidnapped.  
> Yes, it has been almost two months since this was last updated.
> 
> This chapter has literally taken me a month to write. At the beginning of February, it was almost complete when my computer decided that it had to be formatted completely. Not only did I lose this chapter as well as the entire story, but I also lost an entire library of music. Slowly, but surely, I built up the esteem to write this chapter again with a few improvements here and there. I am so sorry for the hiatus and I honestly did not intend to stay away for this long especially after starting the story over almost completely.
> 
> Please be patient with me as I have to literally rewrite a lot of the chapters I had to follow this one up. I will try not to stay off as long as I did this time.
> 
> Thank you all again for reading!  
> -Kourtney


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